Perhaps it's the way I grew up. It could just be my overly practical nature. In any case, there is a right and a wrong way to many things. Actually, there's usually a right way and a bunch of wrong ways. Luckily for me, with toilet paper roll installation, there's one right way (forward facing) and one wrong way (backward facing). Worth noting, there is also a toilet paper to the left scenario, a toilet paper to the right scenario, and a toilet paper straight-on scenario to be considered logistically speaking. In public restrooms you almost always are dealing with a sideways reach to the roll; however due to the industrial design of commercial dispensers, they negate a forward or backward installed roll and it's generally difficult to get the toilet paper dispensed no matter which way it's installed. For this reason, I stand behind the home court advantage whenever possible — but that's a topic for another time.
For descriptive ease, I'm going to center on a straight-on roll dispenser in a home environment. When you finish playing Angry Birds you lay down your smartphone and reach forward to the dispenser. In a fluid motion, your hand extends outward, fingers pointing toward the roll, with your thumb in an opposing grip position as your arm bridges the gap between you and your exit papers. From a sitting position, the most natural maneuver is to then grasp the fresh end of paper and pull down and toward you, allowing the paper to roll smoothly out to the precise length for the job at hand. Since you already spent too much time launching birds at pigs, this is not a task on which you want to spend much mental energy. The flap of the toilet paper should curl from the back of the roll up and over in a spinning motion toward you. If the flap of toilet paper curls over the roll toward the wall and hangs down on the opposite side — between the roll and the wall — there is no fluid motion, even in gymnastics, that will allow you to just grab that flap and pull. Depending on your bathroom layout, there is a very good chance you will have to lean forward uncomfortably off the commode to get the extra inch or two needed for your finger tips to fumble and finally grasp the free end of the paper. Just going on physics, when you pull incorrectly installed paper toward you, it encounters additional resistance because it is dragging against much more of the toilet paper roll before it can come free. You might be safe with a three-ply paper but with the economy what it is, and the desire not to clog low water consumption toilets, you are proably working with, at best, a two-ply. With the roll on backwards, the awkward physical manuevering to grab ahold of it, combined with the increased pressure on the paper as you pull, will prematurely rip the paper.
So, without even going into the aesthetics of a correctly installed toilet paper roll versus an incorrectly installed toilet paper roll, I can stand solidly on ergonomics and physics to prove my case. With this in mind, if we started using this as a physics lesson early on in schools we could avoid situations like the bathroom in my townhouse. The builder obviously did not grasp the repercussions of placing an air vent under a foward wall-mounted toilet paper dispenser. As a result, whenever the roll is installed correctly, as soon as the heating or air conditioning kicks on, it unrolls the entire roll of paper onto the tile floor. So, weekly, I am distracted from my Angry Birds game as I sit mocked by an incorrectly installed toilet paper roll. One, which adding insult to injury, I had to install that way myself. :-/
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Most people get a cat for this 😉
I never used to care which way it went on, my now ex-wife taught me the error of my ways and B it is.
However my now GF puts it on as A, please help me. After years of training I am now confused as to the correct female toilet roll orientation protocol.
+Dryade Geo I hope that You want play with words! OMG
A = incorrect
B = correct
I thought this debate was resolved eons ago.
I have been doing it wrong for decades. I had always used 'A' when installing a new roll.
Thanks for setting me straight, I will try 'B' next time.
I'm agree with +Claudio Ibarra
I vote for don't give a toss. Whatever way round it happens to be at the time.
B is the only logical way!
O.o
Anyone who's had kids (or kittens) knows that A is right. Much less likely to end up with the whole roll on the floor.
Weirdly, +Scott Cramer, and I can't for the life of me remember where I read this, Jennifer Aniston has a real problem with this too. Do not ask me why I know this, but I only remember because I felt like she'd become a kindred spirit. Suddenly a famous person, a really famous person, was in the same club as me.
Something is wrong with A people
Something is wrong with people who care. 😉
My cat did never roll down the paper, though it´s always installed the B-way…
+Kate McAfee You see the thought trains I suppress for you all? I could talk about stuff like this, so just think about that next time! :V
Not only does 'A' keep cats from creating a paper lava flow, it also allows a one handed pull to press the wrist against the underside of roll as a brake during the tear off.
Seems to me the important thing about toilet paper isn't which way it faces, but that it's there when you need it!
Try living in India, +Jodi Kaplan!
If your cats never unravel your toilet paper, well aren't you lucky?
+Eoghann Irving So jaded! 😉 lol
Yeah that paper better be OVER if not then I know i'm in trouble when I take a seat. . .is it sad that, thats how the girl lets me know she's mad at me? EH whatever, BUT IT HAD BEST BE OVER!
I was told that A was seen only in French whorehouses.
+Don Sanders I think cats are pesky whether it be "A" or "B" rolled paper. I'm mainly stuck on the fact you need a brake for slowing down your toilet paper roll! For you sir, I worry about friction burns in bad places! 😉
+Jodi Kaplan +Jamie Furlong True. I humbly admit to be a spoiled American. But, being that is already the case, since I have a steady supply of toilet paper, it might as well be installed correctly! lol
+Matthew T. hehe… That's one step away from the daytime talk show circuit, my friend! 😉
+Sheila Garl The mystery that is you continues to unfold…
The great debate would intensify with the absents of the paper.
+Mason McMann It's so difficult to get corn cobs to wrap around modern dispensers…
I am in the predicament of having no toilet paper roll at all due to a never ending bathroom remodel. So our issue becomes a "where the @$&)_&@ is the roll when you need it."
This problem is intensified when you have a German shepherd that likes to sneak in the bathroom and eat all of the toilet paper when you are not paying attention.
+Keith Cramer That's why you should stop getting flavored TP!
+Claudio Ibarra Flavored TP? lmao
Kudos on the post bro… Very entertaining.
ahahhahahahahahaha +Keith Cramer =_=
+Claudio Ibarra dang, but the banana raspberry is the bomb. Lmao.
It's the after-taste you have to worry about.
Blech.
+Scott Cramer This is not because I'm left-handed but I would better go for the "A" scenario, and this is the reason why:
In a particular angle, the "forward facing" can be masking the lack of toilet paper, while the "backward facing" won't fool anyone… And the 'backward facing', with its natural deceleration effect will prevent any epileptic person to unroll too much paper in an uncontrolled gesture.
So… How do you think about it?
+Emilio Boronali Don't you have bidets? 😉
But mr +Scott Cramer this conversation is very down… O M G! +Kristi Fahlsing can You help Scott… ahahahahahaha
+Emilio Boronali forget this question… +Scott Cramer is on a bad way… ahahahahahah
+Scott Cramer OMG! Bidets are so " Ancien Régime " ! ! The fact is: I've never had a toilet paper dispenser. I usually display the paper rolls on top of the toilet tank. Period.
ahahahahahahahahahahaha!
+Scott Cramer "bidet" always remembers me of an old NSFW (and Not Safe For Fundamentalist Christians ) joke :
An english couple checked in an old-fashioned French hotel and the wife is intrigued by the "bidet" as she entered the bath room. After a close look at it, she turns to the groom saying:
"I know what it is for! It is to wash the baby in!"
And the groom retorts: "No madame, it is to wash the baby out…"
+Emilio Boronali You risk the dreaded toilet paper fumble! The one where you drop the roll and it rolls out of reach. Then you are stuck doing the pants around the ankles duck walk to go get it, whilst trying not to clench your cheeks…
OMG OMG My words! ahahahahahahahaahha
+Scott Cramer No I don't: I firmly put the paper roll around my right-hand's thumb and use it as a portable paper roll dispenser, the other fingers preventing the roll from falling down…
Who's your daddy now?
ahahahahahahah
+Kristi Fahlsing I think that +Scott Cramer have a strange ideas about the bathroom… Can we help you for anything problem?
Quite sane ideas +Salvio Giglio. 🙂
ahahahahahaha… i laugth too much for speak now ahahahahahahahahahahha
+Scott Cramer you missed an important calculation in your ergonomics: how the extra reach is complicated by your legs that have completely fallen asleep after the extended Angry Birds session.
+Jim Gomes OMG, that has totally happened before. You try to move with the "dead foot" and trying not to fall over. Then the pins and needles hit… Nice call!
B… always.