‘That will be four rolls of 2-ply, please’

This weekend my hairdresser asked if I could pay her in toilet rolls. And she was only half-joking.

This is what we’ve come to. The ground has shifted beneath our feet and we no longer take anything for granted as the basic necessities of life begin to disappear rapidly from our shops. 

The reason why bog rolls have become such a rarity is hard to fathom. Why can’t we improvise? People used to use newspaper in the olden days, didn’t they, and leaves before that. Neither of these items are technically flushable, but we have bins and recycling facilities don’t we?

Of course, I’m talking from the lofty position as (whisper it) the wife of someone who works for a tissue manufacturer. And my hairdresser is aware of that fact, which is why she made her extraordinary suggestion.

She explained that while she and her husband had sufficient loo paper for the time being, her elderly mother had been unable to locate any and neither had her son and his fiancee. After several abortive trips to Morrison’s on behalf of her relatives she eventually accosted the manager and asked: “What do I need to do to secure myself some toilet rolls?” I don’t think she was offering to sell her body, but I can’t be certain. Desperate times, etc.

Anyway, he suggested she either turn up when the store first opened (which she couldn’t, she was working) or at the very end of the day. Trouble is, the store doesn’t close until 11pm.

However, she chose to accept her mission which was to head out at 10.30pm, then loiter around the tissue aisle in the hope of intercepting the shelf-stackers and copping some toilet paper direct from the pallet. And her efforts paid off – although she was only able to bag herself four rolls in the end.

Hence her request to me before I had my hair cut on Saturday. Of course, I was never going to pay my hairdresser in toilet paper. We’re not made of the stuff, for a start, and as a society we haven’t yet reached the point where we have to barter our goods and services instead of financially rewarding people for the jobs they actually do. And she’s going to need the money in any case as her business is dwindling with increasing numbers of customers either cancelling - or worse – falling ill.

So I paid my hairdresser in cash as usual. But I tipped her in toilet rolls.