TOILET WOE

TOILET WOE

Another day, another hideous toilet-related accident, and another enraged letter to a confused customer relations department.

Will this madness ever end?


Dear Mr T-Box

Congratulations on rebranding yourself after that nasty A-Team business. I'm so glad you were cleared of the crime you didn't commit, but that's by-the-by if my experience with one of your products isn't addressed forthwith.

I refer, of course, to your workplace toilet paper dispenser that goes under the name "Rottweiler". You know - the big round thing in which the paper is (supposedly)dispensed through two rows of jagged teeth.

I say "supposedly" because after my depositing a dose of nutty slack in the gentlemen's facilities in my workplace, I found that despite holding a near full roll of paper, the end of said roll had disappeared inside the machinery and could not be reached. No amount of rotating this way and that would give me the end of the paper, so in desperation, I reached inside the contraption, resulting - predictably - in getting my left hand trapped inside. Because that's the kind of thing that happens to me.

After several minutes fruitless tugging, I realised my hand was trapped, and it was some time before my cries for help were answered, having taken the liberty of availing myself of the little-used Executive Washrooms on the second floor.

After several members of cleaning staff came and pointed at me in my predicament - in which I was in a state of distressed deshabille, my hole beginning to itch in the only way it can when left with unwiped waste products for too long - it was decided that the Fire Service should be summoned.

Unfortunately, they had fires to put out, so rescue came some time later. When the firefighters finally arrived, pointing at my johnson - which, by now, resembled the nozzle on a deflated air-bed - they completely dismantled the cubicle and the toilet before some bright spark pointed out that it was my hand that was stuck.

Happily, a few hefty blows with a fireman's big, red chopper freed me from my prison, and I was able to go about my business with only minor humiliation. Luckily, I was able to stave off the effects of dehydration by drinking from the toilet bowl. I shudder to think of the outcome if it were not for this vital source of life-sustaining water.

And my complaint is this: Sort the paper out, you muppets - I've lost count of the number of times my finger's gone through, leaving me with an unwanted chocolate surprise. I don't care how you do it. Get the Andrex puppy, the Charmin bear and that little bastard from the Velvet adverts in for questioning and sort something out.

It's only a matter of times before you have a corpse on your hands.

Your pal

Albert O'Balsam