There are a lot of good words printed on this toilet paper wrapper describing the contents:

"Saving Trees Since 1950." "A Small, Easy Step to a Greener Earth." "Right For the Environment." "Green, But Hard Working."

So I bought it and brought it home and discovered really only five words can describe it properly:

HIGHWAY
REST
STOP
TOILET
PAPER

You know, I don't understand why this stuff still exists. I certainly do my part to kill it off. When I encounter high-quality toilet paper in my travels, I count off five squares, and I double it twice. But when I run into lousy toilet paper, like this stuff -- Hey, Barnes & Noble! -- I want to punish the people who inflict it on me. Maybe they're cheap, and maybe they don't want to be bothered with changing the roll more than every autumnal solstice. In this case I grab the end of the toilet paper, and I yank.

The wheel starts spinning and I expect Pat Sajak to appear. I keep yanking as the paper comes out to build up some momentum, and pretty soon the wheel is spinning like there's a runaway stagecoach attached. As the paper shoots out I try to loop it around my hands, like somebody's grandma sorting out her yarn, but the stuff is thin as tissue and my arms are four feet apart and inevitably I lose control. What should be a simple process instead looks like I'm throwing some kind of Mexican Birthday Party in my rusted-metal stall.

So I dump it all in the toilet and try again. And again. And again.

With good paper, when I'm finished there are three little pads in the toilet.

With bad paper, when I'm finished it looks like someone with a puffy white afro is going down for the third time.

Meanwhile, there's one weird phenomenon that surely deserves that "Only in New York" tag. Did you know that stores here sell toilet paper by the INDIVIDUAL ROLL? They've got the four-packs, naturally, but next to them there's always a pyramid of single rolls on sale for a buck apiece.

That's the fastest thing that'll get me depressed in America today. Faster than Carrie Prejean, or Viagra commercials, or Bjork movies. Because it's impossible to imagine somebody buying one single roll without adding dialog like, "Hey, who knows if I'm still gonna be pooping tomorrow?"