For the Love of Pink

Ah yes - the good ole days of the 70’s and 80’s. Newly invented cell phones were big enough to warrant carrying an extra briefcase. Hair shampoo like Prell© and Body on Tap© (with beer!) promised unwavering beauty, and Farah Fawcett’s white teeth were the product of Ultra Brite© toothpaste. Deodorant finally escaped the confines of pressurized cans and morphed into a healthier ‘stick.’

And the best part? Toilet paper came in 4 colours – blue, green, yellow and PINK.

Sheer bliss. Life was so simple with coloured toilet paper, but the atrocity of our bums turning green put a stop to all that. I miss that one luxury of life.

Flash forward 30 years, and I am sauntering into the grocery store with my credit-card sized cell phone in my pocket and earth-friendly reusable bags under my arm. My ‘scientifically advanced’ stick deodorant has been applied in triplicate-times-5 as I live in fear that any offending smells will be Blogged or Tweeted by the person behind me at the checkout.

But first, as always in my world, I make a beeline to the customer’s washroom.

Some things never change.

I flick on the light with my elbow, close and lock the door with my sleeve, and…low and behold! Pink toilet paper!

Over the years I have longed for the return of this 15th wonder of the world. Coloured bums aside, why can’t we go back to colour-coordinating in its most extreme? When I planned my Barbie and Ken fantasy marriage as a kid, I vowed to always buy pink toilet paper. Heck…Barbie’s Corvette was pink, so why not?

But back to the grocery store and my euphoria in the customer’s washroom….

The shelves of earth-friendly household cleaner, organic kitty litter and re-usable paper plates (?) are a blur as I bolt from the washroom. I finally find the rows of pillow-soft, earth-friendly, double-rolled, extra-strength packages of...white.

Suddenly, the dust clouds part. A single beam of fluorescent light spotlights a package of pink, and I swear I hear angelic choirs singing.

‘Stop the flushing and come look at this!!’ I want to yell down the aisles. ‘And they’re on SALE too!’

Purex®, makers of the pink (yay!) toilet paper, brought back this classic in an effort to raise money for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation; 25 cents from every package sold goes towards cancer-fighting research (double yay!). Not only will I have the glory of owning 12 rolls of bubble-gum coloured segmented squares, but I will also know I played a part in contributing to research for this awful disease.

I grab a package, and like a football player, hug it to my body as I charge past the other customers and their carts full of lentils and goat’s milk. Don’t worry – I make it to the checkout safe and sound. Can’t say the same for the lentil-buying customers who dared get in my way, though.

I forget everything else I need to buy – my family will just have to starve. As I break the speed limit going home, a 3-minute drive on a slow day, I lovingly stroke the pink package in the passenger seat beside me.

Pink-dyed skin be damned, this is gonna be great!

As you will recall, I have an on-going renovation project of my new bathroom/office (see post from September 9, 2010, Writing with the Toilet Seat Down), and the pink rolls are a perfect addition. I have claimed full ownership of this ‘office’ (see previous blog as mentioned above), and this means everything within. No one will be allowed to use these pink rolls, even if down to the last….solitary...white…square.

Now if someone could please tell me where I could find scented toilet paper…

For more information, visit the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation at www.cbcf.org, as well as Purex at www.purex.ca