The Alterna-Shopper Speaks

Dear Green Forest,

We are your ideal customers. We pay extra to buy local. We go out of our way to buy organic. We're always up for a boycott. But here's the thing: there has to be something in it for us.

Let me give you an example: There was a little independent health food store in Red State Capital City Suburb. The kind of place you believe in. The kind of place you want to survive, especially in the face of the ongoing onslaught of Whole Foods and Wild Oats. So I shopped there, even though the selection was nowhere near as good, even though the prices were not the best. But the woman who ran it was, to put it not so politely, a bitch. She was not helpful, she was rude to me, and, worst of all, she was rude to my kids. So I stopped shopping there. Because, if you are going to sacrifice selection and price on principle, you should at the very least get service.

The problem with you, Green Forest, is not service. It's number of sheets. I'm fine with the paper towels, I love the paper towels, but that's probably because we do not use a lot of paper towels. We have dish towels, we have sponges, we are environmental like that, like you want us to be. But there's not a lot you can do to cut back on the number of sheets of toilet paper you use, especially given toilet paper habits in this house, which I will not get into, but which I assure you have nothing to do with me.

Due to the chaos of moving, we have been forced several times to buy toilet paper from the corner store. In single rolls. Unrecycled toilet paper. Thin, less-cushiony, but not unpleasant toilet paper. Toilet paper that lasts forever. A single roll that takes us more than a week to use up.

I had no idea. I've been using your toilet paper for so long, I thought it was normal to go through a roll in two days, to buy toilet paper on every weekly trip to the supermarket. But now I see that it doesn't need to be that way. The six-pack of Scott's that S bought last night could take us to...October?

So I'm afraid I'm customer history. Best of luck to you. And do let me know if you figure out a way to squeeze more sheets onto that roll.

All the best,
Becca

[And who knew there was a website devoted to toilet paper?]