Pickles by Brian Crane for February 04, 2024

Time to start keeping the door shut guys.

It seems like it hangs from the bottom either way. It can hang from the front or back.

Turn around and let’s see what we’re dealing with is killing me!

TP manufacturers agree with Opal. Which side do they print? The side facing the wall or the side facing the person?

I hate to say this, but I agree with Opal.

I can’t remember date or the year; but I could have sworn there was a strip similar to this many years ago. It was good though.

I agree with Earl, because thankfully my cats still just bat at the roll and haven’t figured out they can pull on the hanging end.

I agree with Opal on this one

I don’t actually like using it from the doohickey on the wall. Just leave the roll on the counter by the sink next to the throne and unwrap it from there. No need to worry about which way you hang it.

He’s starting to sound like Roseanne Rosannadana.

You show them Muffin!

Their relationship is doomed.

I don’t care as long as there is some there. Just replace the roll.

I’m on Team Opal. For today, anyway.

I’ve got a free-standing TP holder so whoever needs the TP can turn it to be how they want it.

It looks like Muffin is going to decide this argument!

Earl should just have his own roll of T.P. in the bathroom and use it any way he wants without hanging it. That way the issue is solved, and Opal can hang the T.P. the way she wants. Muffin is always a scene stealer whenever he appears!

I never know which way my wife will put it. I just put it over the top when it’s “wrong “. 50 years and she’s never noticed.

I’m with Opal, in case anyone is taking a poll.

My family actually had this discussion a few months ago. As the head of the household, I have decreed that the free end of the paper should hang closest to the wall because if it’s stuck to the roll, a quick puff of air will dislodge it. Everyone disagrees, but them’s the rules.

And if someone has replaced the roll incorrectly, I turn it around.

70% of the population prefers the “over” position (the right way).

One of my cats will play with the toilet paper, but if I hang it (the tp, not the cat) from the back, it doesn’t unroll. Squeezing the roll so it doesn’t spin very well also helps.

She’s right. TP needs to be on the top. When on the bottom, it’s more difficult to get to, plus a quick tear can start it unravelling. Over the top is the correct way. Also, we all know that Earl is a looney so whatever he favors has to be wrong.

Married Bliss =Two Bathrooms

Next time you go to a hotel check how they have placed the rolls. In my experience, it has been over the top 100% of the time.

It’s easier for the cat if the tp is over.

What is this “Toilet paper” of which you speak?

Did people argue about which way the leaves should hang on the tree for those visits to the woods? Which way did you face your corn cobs in the outhouse?

I had a cat that it didn’t matter which way you hug the roll as well, she just bit huge chunks out of the roll. Nothing like trying to wipe you a$$ with holy TP!

Hanging the roll like that prevents the cat from doing that.

Somebody doesn’t know how cats roll. :-)

“The 1891 patent for the toilet paper roll (yes, that exists) literally states that the end of the roll should be hanging off the exterior. It was granted on September 15, 1891 as patent number US456516A,” yep suppose to hang over, not under

Two gags in strip. Well done, Mr. Crane!

I gotta level with you. I’ve never been a fan of Opal. She seems to be a nag more times than not and over petty stuff.

Actually, cats have a harder time unrolling TP if it’s rolled from the back (they tend to pull down on the front of the roll), rather than from the front, but they shred it more that way. Unrolled TP can be rerolled, shredded TP is less “useful”, but generally softer.

It is easier to find the end and unroll it yourself if it unrolls from the front.

In the end, but not the end of the TP roll, roll it the way you want, without forcing your druthers on others.

Hanging from the top is allegedly the ‘correct’ way to install a roll of toilet paper, although that makes it easy for cats to unspool the roll. Which is why— in my house with five cats— the toilet paper hangs beneath the roll.

Try not to think about all the other hands that have dug around from the bottom of that roll. From the top, please.

it’s beyond me why this is a hill to die on

I prefer slightly squashed, so it can be sat on top of the empty roll.

How did their marriage last a week?

Muffin strikes again.

Today is the day that I finally relent and can label Earl a “monster.”

You’re barking up the wrong tree.

Cats can’t effectively unroll paper hung like depicted in the comic. They don’t unroll it by pulling on the paper, and if they do, it tends to tear. They unroll the paper by spinning the roll. When hung to the back, as depicted, spinning the roll keeps the paper on. That’s one reason to hang it that way.

Factually, paper is easier to use if its hung the other way. People hang it “from the front” if they want it to be easy to use and from the back if they want to keep people (and animals) from using too much. That’s why many businesses and hotels hang it from the back as well as people with pets.

Never expected that one LOL. LOve it

There was a great reference to this in the Simpsons. If memory serves, one or both parents were called into the kids school because the toilet paper hung from the bottom was equivalent to abuse or something LOL.

Second panel LOL, good one Earl. Fourth panel though is correct, hang from top, for once the bottom way gets rolling, it won’t stop. All’s it takes is a breeze or cat or kid or……………

Hilarious, Earl’s on a roll!

Yea nothing says sanitary like tp hanging up against a wall.

In the house we now live in, we have to keep our toilet paper either on the counter by the sink, or on top of the toilet tank. The paper holder is too tight next to toilet.

Oh dear! Here we go! It’s the great toilet paper debate again! Ann Landers said the letter she received the most responses on was about which way to hang the toilet paper roll. This was on Oprah and Oprah pointed out that the audience members were having animated discussions on the topic.

Great first reply, Earl. It’s over the top.

Per the patent, TOILET PAPER ROLLS OUT OVER THE FRONT! OTOH, if you have a cat, I suppose you can be (grudgingly) forgiven for setting it up the wrong way…I wouldn’t know; none of my bosses ever bothered the toilet paper.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Years ago, I had a roommate who insisted it went the other way. Every time one of us went to the bathroom, we’d turn the roll around. Finally we compromised & set it on the tank lid.

Muffin! Heh heh.

I’m with Earl, that’s the way it HAS to be……from the bottom……and you can’t convince me otherwise! NYAH!

Earl is wrong.

There is a newspaper columnist, Cory Farley, who used to write great, humorous comment columns for the Reno Gazette-Journal (Reno is adjacent to Sparks NV, where the Pickles family (and their creator) lives, BTW) (and I wrote astronomy columns for the RGJ for a few years, too) (and lived in both Reno and Sparks). Farley insisted, with some evidence, that the proper way to hang toilet paper was hanging down the front (I think that was his choice, anyway). He got a lot of disagreement from his readers, and the argument was almost an annual humor-fest. Anyone else remember him?

I always had to hang it from the bottom because my cats only unrolled it when hanging from the top. I guess they never figured that out. They weren’t the brightest but they were my buddies.

Not true, cats very much prefer it being hung over.

At least he didn’t leave it empty. Stop complaining!.

Oy…Opal will have another fit….soon….

problem fixed!

in Grandma’s outhouse there was no luxury like toilet paper, you used pages from the old Sears catalog so the argument was did you tear pages from the front or back. yes I’m serious about the catalog, that’s why everybody tried to go before leaving home when going to her house.

The actual picture drawn by the INVENTOR for his patent application shows it being OVER THE TOP!Here endeth the lesson!

So, after reading (nearly) all the comments above, how about instead of saying the “right” or “wrong” way, we say the “cat household” way or the “cat-free” way?

One of my housemates and I just take the toilet paper off the roll instead of putting it on.

Got a terrible visual of toilet paper hanging from Opal’s bottom.

While I prefer the roll out over the top, experience with cats in the house is that that position results in a total unraveling onto the floor while the reverse just gets a clawed up half a roll. lLess waste.

“Let’s see what we’re dealing with”? HA! Classic! By the way… From the top. Absolutely!

Interesting: I’ve had probably 10 cats in my lifetime, and I don’t recall any of them clawing the toilet paper. Furniture and wood molding, yes, but not TP.

My mother came out of the restroom at Morrison’s Cafeteria with toilet paper trailing behind her. My sister stepped on it as our mother was walking. I wasn’t there (wish I had been), but I’ve been told that my mother’s reaction was a sight to see!

actually, it’s coming from the top either way…just sayin’…

Front of back. Never top or bottom.

The first two panels had me roaring…too funny

If you look up the patent for toilet paper roll holder she is right!

The toilet paper hanging issue is one of the main reasons I think everyone should have their own bathroom and be responsible for keeping it clean.

Wow! 147 comments on this subject? Don’t break it, people!

I here that toilet paper position was (or is, maybe) a common argument topic for couples. Toothpaste tube squeezing is another.

ALWAYS over the top, hanging from the front!

If turned around, the cat can’t unroll it so easily =P

Looks like Earl is married to 3 old horses…………………..naG nAG NAG.

If you roll it from the top; the end will always be visible and easy to reach. If you pull it from the bottom the end will be out of sight, and you will have to roll it around to find the end. If you have toddlers in the house; you will want it to roll from the bottom. They will always roll it down from the outside. If it is pulling from the top, they will roll it all onto the floor.

The first two panels may be the best-of-all-time comic I ever read. Made my day. :-)

My cutie Sophie did that when I went down to the basement to do my clothes LOL