Daily Gratitude: Two-ply Toilet Paper

'Tis the season for being grateful and for the giving of thanks. In fact, I am pretty sure there is a holiday right around the corner, one for which we are supposed to be grateful and to give thanks for all the things for which we are grateful and thankful. If memory serves right.

It's not uncommon to scroll through my news feed on Facebook these days and to read what others call their daily gratitude posts—the simple and the most important things in life for which they are appreciative.

As for the Angry White Loner, when it comes to gratitude, he thinks of two-ply toilet paper. Yes, really.

That's a pretty lame thing to be thankful for, some of you may think. And you would be right, assuming all of the world out there had things as good as we do here in the United States of America.

In case you haven't been to the Third World, I will let you in on a little secret: They don't have things as good as we do. Not even close.

Sure, France has its Eiffel Tower—in fact, two of the AWL's brothers and their spouses were there just a few days ago (not that I am bitter!)—Australia has its kangaroos and dingoes, and Japan has karaoke bars on pretty much every block. Beautiful things, all of them. But we truly live in a unique and a blessed land. There is no other place like it on Earth.

Why? Because of two-ply toilet paper.

Years ago, when I opened my mission call and read that I had been called to serve in the Peru Lima Central Mission, I knew exactly three things about Peru: The ruins of Machu Picchu were there, and it also had South America's highest concentration of Native Americans (Lamanites) and llamas. If you had asked me back then, I would have ventured a guess that they all rode llamas everywhere and had llamas for pets instead of dogs and cats and they all ate frequently at llama burger joints instead of McDonald's or Wendy's.

Granted, many of those preconceived notions turned out to be true. Llama tastes like chicken. And I did, in fact, make it to Machu Picchu—twice.

Nevertheless, the luster and the wonder soon vanished when I had my first glimpse of one of Lima's many shantytowns—Third World-like dumps where squatters live in homes literally made out of tin roofs and adobe bricks and plastic sheets and not much else, with dirt floors and no electricity in many places and unpaved roads with so much dust to kick up that I contracted conjunctivitis my first week there, along with several other bugs, and my ankles and feet became infested with fleas not once but twice. There are also frequent earthquakes and a destructive weather phenomenon, coined by Peruvian fisherman, called "El Niño."

Don't even get me started on Atahualpa's Revenge. You either know about it, or you don't.

This is where the issue of toilet paper comes in. Peruvians use toilet paper for every possible, conceivable reason. It's as valuable a commodity as towels are in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series of books. Not only do they use it for its already well-known properties, but they also use it as napkins and for taking notes and about 1,000 other things. One of the first things I learned in my first few days in the country is that you carry several sheets of toilet paper in your pockets at all times, because you never know when you will need some. If you run out, you restock. This is, in addition, because many toilets in Peru (1) don't have actual toilet seats to sit on and (2) are not stocked with any toilet paper at all.

The problem with Peruvian toilet paper? In two years, I never saw a single sheet of two-ply paper. One-hundred percent of it is single ply. I missed two-ply toilet paper. A lot. I also missed peanut butter, root beer, Dr Pepper, and hot showers.

And so, this Thanksgiving, that's what I'm feeling grateful for. Among many other things.

Skanky Lyrics

I was at the Karaoke Café not long ago, enjoying a fun evening of karaoke---you know, like all of the cool kids do---when a father and his young daughter stepped up to sing a duet. Their song choice was, in my mind, somewhat unusual.

It was Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now." This was a disturbing choice for a father/daughter duet because (1) it's a country song, obviously, and (2) it's basically what I call "The Drunk Dialing/Booty Call Song" about two lonely people, plastered with whiskey, talking on the phone at 1:15 a.m. because they "need (each other) now."

Being completely snockered is a perfect frame of mind in which to express your deeply felt romantic feelings for someone else, isn't it?

Unless I failed to capture the deeper meaning of this masterpiece of modern music, that's what the song is about. In the Angry White Loner's view, it's not exactly this millennium's version of "Butterfly Kisses" for a daddy/daughter duet.

This incident aside, there was also the wedding reception I attended recently. The happy couple had a video playing in the chapel foyer that showed many photographs from their growing up years, all set to catchy romantic tunes---a rather common sight at wedding receptions here in Utah.

The only problem? One of these tunes, Plain White T's "Rhythm of Love," wasn't so much romantic as it was a song about a couple having a one-night stand.

Heavenly stuff!

Don't get the AWL wrong, sports fans; he loves music and singing just as much as the next person. It's just that he sometimes wonders whether people actually listen to the lyrics of the songs that they sing and play over and over again. For him, skanky lyrics tend to ruin what otherwise would be great songs.

Karaoke Nerds Unite

As I discussed in a recent post, I am white and nerdy about a lot of things. One of the things I'm especially nerdy about is karaoke.

I have been hooked on karaoke from the first time I tried it. Years ago at a singles activity, there was a room with a karaoke machine in it, and out of sheer curiosity, I signed up to sing Hanson's immortal hit from 1997, "MMMBop." I began singing the song in a lovely falsetto, designed to match that of lead singer Zac Hanson. By the time the song was over, though, my throat began to get tired from that, so I switched my voice to an octave lower.

Afterward, friend of mine approached me to tell me that it sounded like Hanson going through puberty.

At any rate, I had lately been feeling what my friend the Awkward Mormon Girl calls "The Neediness" (assuming I have correctly understood what "The Neediness" is, AMG) and decided to begin organizing monthly karaoke nights at the Karaoke Café in Murray for myself and my friends as a way of reaching my required karaoke quota. There were seven of us in June and four of us in July. This past Tuesday night, I was joined by only two friends out of the dozens who were invited.

Sure, it's the Law of Diminishing Returns in action, but all you really need is at least one good friend with you in order to enjoy an evening of karaoke, so two is an added bonus. In addition to being a fantastic place to work on such theatrical techniques as performing solo songs in front of crowds and stage presence (all three of us are, after all, members of the Improvables), the Karaoke Café is also a great place to people-watch.

There are the showtunes geeks, usually singing selections from Wicked, Les Misérables, or Disney's many animated films. No fewer than five women ever take the stage together to sing and/or shout "Girls Just Want to Have Fun," "I Will Survive," or "Dancing Queen." There are older couples reliving happy memories from their long-ago days of courtship, and there are young adults, teens, and kids. There are often as many tone-deaf people as there are those who can genuinely sing well, but, truth be told, nobody cares if you can sing well or not. In karaoke, it's a win-win deal, as everyone listening cheers on every singer who takes the stage, which is really what it's all about.

On this particular Tuesday, there was even a group of what I can only surmise were either special-education students or a special-needs Primary, many of whom were brought in in wheelchairs. A handful who sang could barely make coherent sentences, but even so, we clapped to the beat along with them and applauded them wildly when they finished, which I am sure only made them feel good about themselves.

It's certainly 10 times better than watching "American Idol," which is basically a national karaoke contest but with far-less interesting people. Especially that Seacrest guy.