kicking puppies is bad

Another sign appeared in my office lavatory yesterday. I am finding them hysterical, but that could be because I am completely zonked on DayQuil at the moment. I was going to take pictures for this journal entry, but I am far too lazy. You are stuck with my pathetic description of the insanely ridiculous signs.

The original sign (which has been in the lavatory for at least 1.6 years) says:

For sanitary purposes
please be sure to replace
the toilet paper roll completely
when the roll is empty.
Do not leave the paper on the
railing. Thank you. :)

I initially found this sign disturbing. Someone felt the need to use the word “completely” when asking me to replace the toilet paper. It is as if they thought that I would get half way done unwrapping the toilet paper and then absentmindedly leave it on the floor (or apparently the railing) and leave. WTF? But even more disturbing/amusing was the additional sign that popped up yesterday. The new (additional) sign says:

Opps! Is the toilet paper empty
or almost empty? Don’t forget to
replace the roll and the spare too!

I find several things about this disturbing. The smiling toilet paper icon creeps me out. It haunts my dreams. Seriously. It does. It is really creepy. And it reminds me of the movie Paprika. Which was also creepy.

In order to properly convey the ridiculousness of the sign, I needed to find the clip art image. Did you know there are twenty five images that pop up when I search Microsoft Word’s clip art for “toilet paper”? And five of the toilet paper images that pop up are smiling? How many smiling toilet paper icons do you need? Seriously, there is a freaking parade of smiling toilet paper icons with feet. The parade of alternate smiling toilet paper icons is displayed below for your amusement:

Smiling rolls of toilet paper are disturbing. Knowing that there are multiple smiling toilet paper icons out there, and that someone was probably paid to create them is really disturbing.

I find other things about this disturbing as well. There are only nine of us in our little locked area. We deal with secure patient data. You need a key, and a combination to get in. There are nine of us and only five women. We all know who isn’t replacing the toilet paper. If she hasn’t been doing for the last five years (with one sign as a reminder) why would adding a second sign help? Dammit, there is already a *freaking* sign!

And finally this is disturbing because I am pretty sure that our director (who is the one who seems most concerned about this) asked our secretary to spend valuable time creating a completely useless sign for the lavatory. And I am pretty sure that our secretary (who is fairly bright) knew how ridiculous it was while she was making it.

Smiling toilet paper icons. WTF?