You’re in a Bathroom. There’s No Toilet Paper. What Do You Do?

A tale of love, regret, and the moment that changed my dinner party questions.

When I was 23, I got married and immediately regretted it, but decided to ride it out like a polite hostage.
I was Southern.

I said “yes” with the enthusiasm of someone signing a long-term lease on a house they’d only seen in dim lighting. There were red flags, sure, but I folded them like laundry and shoved them in the back of my mental closet, under the pile of wedding Pinterest boards and purity culture.

Because I didn’t need a fairytale.
I told myself that a lot.
I don’t need a fairytale.
I just want partnership.
Stability. Mutual respect.

Okay, maybe a little magic. A forehead kiss. A hand on the small of my back at a dinner party. Him texting, “Hey, just thinking about you,” unprompted. Like… twice a year. That felt reasonable.

I knew marriage would be work. I was mature enough to accept that.
But deep down, I still thought if I got the “wife” part right—if I kept the house clean, made peace, stayed in shape, didn’t nag, showed interest in his weird little hobbies, and never acted “too emotional”—then everything else would click into place.

I wasn’t asking for a castle. Just someone who didn’t spend hundreds on takeout and digital gems for imaginary kingdoms, while I was Googling “cheap meals with spinach” and telling myself this was normal.

---

Which brings me to the towel.

Six months in, I walked into our tiny apartment bathroom and saw it, crumpled on the floor. I didn’t question it. I was in my helpful wife era. I thought love meant staying fit, nodding thoughtfully, and picking up towels without asking questions.

Be the kind of wife who doesn’t overreact, I coached myself.
Be gracious.
Be cool.
Be the girl who rolls with it.
Who doesn’t make things harder.

So I picked it up.

And that’s when I saw it.

A crime. A violation.
An unholy mark so brazen, so absolute, I briefly forgot how sentences worked.

Surely not.
Not poop.
Not poop poop.

Not from an adult man who… well, okay, he didn’t own a drill. Or a savings account. Or cleaning supplies. But still. He had a beard and opinions about coffee and a favorite hoodie he called “vintage.”
That had to count for something… right?

Maybe it was chocolate?
Dirt?
A deeply unfortunate tanning lotion mishap?

It’s not poop if I don’t call it poop, I reasoned.
Maybe this was just a weird bachelor habit he forgot to break.
Maybe I wasn’t supposed to notice.

There was no toilet paper on the holder.
But there was plenty under the sink. About 17 inches away.
I measured later. With rage.
(Seventeen inches. I did the math. That’s two toddler steps. Or one regular adult who gives a damn.)

Now, listen. I know things happen. I know bodies are complicated and sometimes people have emergencies. But this was not that.
This… was a choice.

I looked around.
There were washcloths.
There was an entire shower… which, fun fact, uses water—nature’s original butt wipe.

There were options.
More importantly, bro had time to make this decision.

But this man—my husband, the one I’d promised to love and cherish—had looked around, shrugged, and wiped himself with a bath towel like it was the most natural thing in the world.

And I? I just stood there.
Holding it.

Like a Victorian ghost bride who died mid-vow and now haunts small bathrooms out of spite.
Or a fainting goat who saw too much and simply gave up.

---

I didn’t say anything. Not because I didn’t want to… believe me, I wanted to.
But I was 23.
He was almost 30.
I thought silence was respect. I thought cleaning up after your husband was part of the sacred wife package. Like taxes. Or pretending to be chill about sex that wasn’t exactly mutual.

Also, what would I even say?
“Hey babe, quick thing… did you intentionally wipe your entire digestive system across our bath linen or was this just a freestyle moment?”

I washed the towel.
I washed my hands.
Then I washed them again.

The first time was for my hands.
The second, an attempt to scrub the incident from reality.
Or at least myself.
Neither worked.

I stared at myself in the mirror thinking,
Okay. This is marriage. This is what you signed up for. You knew it wouldn’t be glamorous… but you thought it would at least involve a little common sense. A little hygiene. A little toilet paper.
A little rude Mom didn’t give me a heads-up about this part, but moving on.

What I didn’t know then—and what no one covers in premarital counseling between the budget worksheet and the trust fall exercise—is that this wouldn’t be the last time I’d be handling his poop.

Let’s just say… he had a history.
But we’ll talk more about that later.

---

Now, years removed from marital excrement, I tell this story at dinner parties.
(After dessert, of course. Believe it or not, I do have some decorum. And I don’t want to ruin the tiramisu.)

And I always begin with the same question:

“You’re in a bathroom. You’ve pooped. There’s no toilet paper. What do you do?”

People panic. They get creative.
Some stare wildly at a woman saying the word poop at the table.
“Check the trash.”
“Use a sock.”
“Yell for help.”
“Jump in the shower.”

But not once, not one. single. time, has anyone said:
“Hey, is there a full-size towel?”

---

This is my version of events, remembered as clearly as one can remember things involving towels, shame, and early marriage denial. If anyone remembers it differently, I invite them to write their own towel memoir.