By: Jennifer Richardson Holt
I don’t know if it happens everywhere. I don’t think it’s one of those things that is totally local to my area. I’m pretty sure it’s something that happens in various areas of the country, but around here, it is quite prevalent. I am seeing new examples of it almost every morning commute.
It is abundantly clear these days that overnight, things are occurring in all corners of my community. Each break of daylight reveals a new case. Though the weather is still warm, every single day there are more and more yards that appear to have been snowed upon. White drapes hang from treetops, stretch over roads, and cover lawns. I have even seen a vehicle or two covered.
You see, this is Homecoming week for the local high school, and the rollers are out in full force.
It has become quite an adventure on our commute to work and school every day for my daughter and me to discover what new place or thing has been festooned with toilet paper. And I must say, in both form and function, we have seen a little bit of everything.
There have been examples of either inexperienced or just terribly unskilled work. Large trees fully capable of being utterly blanketed and held only a handful of arm-length pieces that were very uniformly placed. But there is the problem that nothing about toilet-papering a yard is supposed to be uniform or understated. That is kind of the point.
Then there were these rollers who apparently had the hardest time holding on to the tools of their trade. My poor community has roadsides that are dotted with nearly full rolls, and I’m sorry, but that is not efficient for either the wallet or the task at hand.
My daughter and I were discussing the amount of waste we kept coming upon. I questioned if these hooligans were all in the backs of trucks just holding rolls for dear life and how that was not a very good idea.
My daughter said that such things sounded like something that teenagers would do.
While I question the source of her expertise on teenage behavior, I don’t think she’s particularly inaccurate.
There are also the poor souls that live in specific houses that have been revisited time and time again by the paper fairies. One in particular comes to mind that I know has been rolled at least three or maybe four times. It started for them earlier in the football season, but the effort was more minimal. But in the at least two rollings they’ve had this past week alone, oh, there was some hard work put in.
The house has a relatively small front yard, putting its vegetation close to the passing traffic. There are a few tall oaks whose canopies drape out over the road. Well, those trees are now white weeping willows that, I must admit, are a bit lovely, billowing in the glowing light as the sun has come up these past few mornings.
But while they put fervent work into the tall trees, they didn’t let their efforts stop there. Every bush in that yard looks like it is going as a mummy for Halloween. The mailbox has what I would have to guess is very nearly half a roll wrapped around it. There are white streamers simply laid on the ground, making their driveway striped.
But that is not the only place they opted for a more “down to earth” method.
Literally.
You see, I’d say a good 75% of the grass in their yard is speckled with little bits of paper. It almost looked as though our endearing little scalawags had swapped from toilet rolls and gone to napkins, which, considering the amount of dropped rolls scattered amongst a few-mile radius, isn’t that outlandish of an idea.
I was talking with my mother about these small pieces all around this one particular yard, and in so doing, some intriguing statements were made.
It was then that my mother informed me that such methodology was the appropriate way to do it and that if one wanted to really do a thorough job of rolling a house, you tear it into little pieces and put them everywhere because it’s much more difficult to clean.
Um. Excuse me, Mother?
The way you just said that feels a bit too experiential.
She proceeded to also say that “we” never went so far as to re-roll houses either.
Well, no, Mother. I’m sure, since you clearly know all the most impactful methods to employ, I am sure you did your job so well, a part two was unnecessary.
Also, I am not sure who this “we” she referred to involved exactly, but I am getting an image of some ne’er-do-well grandmas and grandpas snickering whilst buying a store out of the cheapest 2-ply they could come across.
In thinking about it, though, it being Homecoming, I suppose it is appropriate for my mother to ponder the carefree days of high school. That’s what the occasion is all about, I guess. The old come back to see how different things are now for the young and are overwhelmed or maybe even disconcerted.
But then they’ll see a few yards in small-town Alabama that look like wintertime in Anchorage and, well, maybe things don’t really change all that much.
And apparently, while the alumni are in town, the youth of today should ask for a few pointers on technique.
