LIKE FATHER, LIKE DAUGHTER
10月
4日
Over 20 years ago, visiting cousins in Hiroshima, Japan, Sam and I were impressed with their bathroom toilet paper holders. When the roll is used-up and only the cardboard core is left, all one has to do is push the new roll under and up. The old core is pushed out and the finger-like holders spring back down into the new core at each end of the new roll.
Here in the USA, we still have to take out the whole toilet paper core holder with the spring trying to push the two plastic or metal spring holders apart. Then we take off the old cardboard empty roll core and put on the new roll of toilet paper. We hope it doesn’t push apart while we are trying to stick one end into the one hole while we push the spring-loaded core holder into the other hole.
During our visit, our Hiroshima cousin went to their hardware store and bought us two ceramic holders as their remembrance gift and we brought them home. Sam immediately installed one holder in our main floor bathroom. For some reason the second one never got installed upstairs and always sat in our utility room shelf for the last twenty or thirty years. I never understood why?
Last year, Kelly, had cousin Rick install the second one upstairs, but the toilet paper rolls wouldn’t stay on so it became kind of a nuisance. Therefore, Kelly spent several months trying to figure out what could be done. Last week, she bought some Epoxy Putty and made the spring loaded finger-like holders at each end a little longer and a little fatter. She did it rather crudely, but it worked. It seems the toilet paper comes about 1/2 to 3/4 inches more narrow here than in Japan.
That same day, the toilet paper ran out downstairs and as she was putting on the new roll, Kelly discovered that Dad Sam had fixed the downstairs holder with Epoxy, the same way she had upstairs!! We had a good laugh as she exclaimed, “Mom come and look, Dad fixed the holder with Epoxy too and did it just as sloppy as I did upstairs.”
