Marriage, Mayhem, and Lavender Toilet Paper

Two are better than one… If either of them falls down, one can help the other up (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10).

Walking through the craziness of these past seven weeks (has it really been that long??) I’ve stumbled plenty. Thankfully, God has given me someone to reach down and pull me back onto my feet.

Those early days, all the changes hit me hard and fast: online school for my kindergartener, online church, and then…online grocery shopping.

Toward the end of March, my husband and I decided we would not go into stores anymore but rather order everything online, including groceries.

We both began working third shift in what we dubbed “procurement.” With iPhones in hand, we filled online grocery carts at multiple stores simultaneously, hoping to score flour, eggs, and, of course, toilet paper, knowing that the hours glued to our phones would all be for naught if we failed to secure a pickup time. Since nearly everyone else in southeast Michigan had the same bright idea, many stores had no pickup slots available at all. Others, we discovered, had wait times of a week or more.

Then I would arrive at a store during our designated time…only to find that many items we had ordered the week prior were out of stock.

One Saturday, I pulled up at one of my favorite grocery stores to pick up an order. This store did call us that morning to let us know which items would not be “fulfilled.” One of those items was toilet paper. Our toilet paper situation had gotten serious. I would not say desperate…but getting our hands on a few rolls had become more than a passing concern.

So I was elated when the employee wheeled the cart out to the van and I caught a glimpse of clear plastic packaging with rolls inside.

When I pulled into our drive, I announced triumphantly, “We got toilet paper!” My husband gave me a high five.

I opened up the hatch. After unloading a top layer of plastic bags filled with bread, Cheerios, and crackers for the girls, a strong, flowery scent hit me. I soon discovered the source. As I pulled out the precious package of toilet paper, I realized it absolutely reeked. The rolls were printed with purple butterflies, and the package informed me that each square of this “premium, deluxe tissue” was lavender scented.

“Aughhh!” I yelled, dropping the package on the garage floor. My husband just stared at me.

“I can’t do it!” I cried. “I really just–can’t! I can handle everything else…but I-can’t-handle-“(I was choking down sobs)–lavender toilet paper!!” I was, as the kids say these days, spiraling. Big time.

My husband continued to stare at my contorted face.

Right at that moment, he had choices. He could silence me with a you-have-got-to-be kidding eye roll. He could lecture me on thankfulness. He could snap back, “Come on, you think you’re the only one who is stressed out right now?”

He did none of these. Instead, he disappeared.

Just for a moment! He then reappeared, carrying something round and white.

“Here,” he said, taking my hand and depositing into it a mega roll of Charmin. “You take this.”

“Now, this roll is all yours. I went over to Mom’s (my mother-in-law lives in a remodeled mobile home on our property) and I traded her three rolls of the lavender for this. I will use the rest of the lavender. You are to take this, and put it in a safe place, to be used for your tush only.”

I looked up at my knight in shining armor, teary eyed, mouth agape. I looked back down at my own personal roll of TP, turning it over in my hands.
And I started to laugh.

Yes, two are much better than one…whether we’re cruising down Normal Street or navigating the rough terrain of a worldwide pandemic. We’ll keep on lifting each other up, and, I pray, keep laughing.