On Sunday, driving to the store, I saw a house in my neighborhood had been toilet-papered.
Well, not the house. The yard. Trees, hedges, shrubs, fence. It’s how we did it in the old days. I had not seen a toilet paper job in so long, I wondered if they did it any more.
But then, they probably don’t do it as much in California as they do in Texas. It is probably as regular an event in Texas as it was 50 years ago, when not more than a couple of weekends went by before one of the girls had her yard TPed.
In those days, it was always a girl. Usually, the girl had dumped on a boy, who got even with the TP snow job on the yard. It could also happen just because a girl was popular, and the TP was a tribute, maybe genuine or maybe grudging. But the result was the same. The girl’s parents had to clean it up.
There were some huge yards in my home town, and I saw toilet paper jobs that were as awesome as some of the Christmas extravaganzas that Texans like to create in their yards. And that’s when you got your toilet paper at Safeway. What could a few kids do today with one or two 24-roll Price Club packs?
The job I saw on Sunday wasn’t bad. There were nice bunting effects on the hedges and multiple streamers in a couple of trees. But the trees were small. Overall, the job lacked the Texas grandeur that I remember, because the trees were too small. Strong-armed Texas high school football players could launch a roll that would clear the top of a 70-foot oak, and 10 or 12 such launches created quite an effect. I saw nothing like that on Sunday.
Still, it would be a job for the dad to clean up, and I felt for him. It was the first toilet paper job I had ever seen, when my first thought was for the dad. I was never around, in the Texas days, when the dad would come out for the paper and discover the visit. I’m sure it was the daughter who got grounded, which now seems hardly fair.
It may not, in this case, have been a dad at all. That was only my snap reaction. It may not have even been a girl. This job may have been something between adults, teed off at each other about this thing or that, and the TP was one adult’s way of letting his frustrations be known. Juvenile, maybe, but more civil than a fistfight. What if the Shiites and Sunnis toilet-papered mosques, instead of blowing them up?
So I don’t know the “back story,” as they say nowadays, about this TP job. But I drove by again yesterday, to see if homeowners in this day and age know about toilet paper and rain. Rain was in the forecast, and I was happy to see the toilet paper was all taken down. It rained hard, last night and this morning. You get rain on a good toilet paper job, and the stuff is in the trees to stay.
About twelve years ago we came home to find the bushes in our front yard gloriously festooned with ribbons of white toilet paper. It was beautiful. The twelve-year-old from across the street joined me, and we stood together admiring the work. Finally she said, "I did a good job, didn't I?"
ReplyDeleteI said, "It's fabulous. If we ever have a wedding here, would you do this again for us?"
"Sure," she said. "Just tell me when."
I grew up in and currently live in North San Diego county. I love seeing TP jobs because I don't see them very often.
ReplyDeleteIn junior high, almost every time I spent the night at one friend's house, we would TP someone in her neighborhood. It was a skill to be able to decorate in the dark while trying to be quiet, especially if my friend was having a slumber party and there were six or seven of us. We would freeze every time a dog barked and hide every time a car drove by.
When we got to high school and could drive somewhere to buy toilet paper, the convenience stores would only let us buy one package of four rolls.
I haven't forgotten one time when our house got TP'ed. I was probably only six or seven years old. My brothers were on the high school water polo team and were in the midst of playoffs. The cheerleaders for the water polo team "honored" them with a pretty extensive TP job. I can still picture my dad, in his bathrobe in the driveway, laughing and shaking his head. I think he was flattered.
About two weeks ago, I saw a TP job in Rancho Santa Fe of all places! I'm glad kids are still doing this.