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Under or over? There actually is a 'right' way to hang a toilet paper roll.

The debate is settled, once and for all.

Elya/Wikimedia Commons

Should you hang the toilet paper roll over or under?

Humans have debated things large and small over the millennia, from democracy to breastfeeding in public to how often people ought to wash their sheets. But perhaps the most silly-yet-surprisingly heated household debate is the one in which we argue over which way to hang the toilet paper roll.

The "over or under" question has plagued marriages and casual acquaintances alike for over 100 years, with both sides convinced they have the soundest reasoning for putting their toilet paper loose end out or loose end under. Some people feel so strongly about right vs. wrong TP hanging that they will even flip the roll over when they go to the bathroom in the homes of strangers.

Contrary to popular belief, it's not merely an inconsequential preference. According to health experts and the man who invented the toilet paper roll, there is actually a "correct" way to hang toilet paper.

What is the correct way to hang a roll of toilet paper?

First, let's be clear about what we're even talking about here with a visual. In the image below, left is "over" and right is "under."

toilet paper, bathrooms, over or under, toilet roll, bathroom etiquette Toilet paper hung "over" (left) and "under" (right)Elya/Wikimedia Commons


So which one is the right way? According to health experts, "over" is the way to go.

"One key to maintaining a hygienic washroom is minimising contact between people and surfaces," Dr. Christian Moro, associate professor of health sciences and medicine at Bond University on Australia's Gold Coast, told Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "Depending on the type of roll holder, [hanging the toilet paper "over"] often lowers the chance that a user will touch the wall behind when fishing for paper, leaving germs behind on that surface which can be spread to the next user."

Picture it: Grabbing the end of the toilet paper when it's hung "over" means you only touch the part of the toilet paper you're going to use. When it's "under," you sometimes have to fish for it or scrape your fingers on the wall in order to grab the loose end. In addition to whatever might be on people's hands already, think about all the people who wipe twice, potentially transferring fresh fecal matter or other bacteria to the wall on the second pass, which then get picked up by other people who inadvertently touch that wall when trying to grab their TP.

Theoretically, we all should have become better hand washers during the pandemic, scrubbing with soap for the full 20 seconds it takes to remove bacteria. But I wouldn't be willing to bet on it.

toilet paper, empty toilet paper roll, batthroom, bathroom etiquette, over or under Empty toilet paper roll.via Canva/Photos

And touching any surface in a bathroom is pretty nasty, according to a study from the University of Colorado. As Inc. reported: "Using a high-tech genetic sequencing tool, researchers identified 19 groups of bacteria on the doors, floors, faucet handles, soap dispensers, and toilets of 12 public restrooms in Colorado — six men’s restrooms and six women’s restrooms. Many of the bacteria strains identified could be transmitted by touching contaminated surfaces."

Bacteria means things like e.coli, which is a common source of food poisoning and one of the most common bacteria found on bathroom surfaces in the study. If you've ever had a bout of food poisoning, I'm sure you'll agree that a toilet paper roll hanging preference isn't worth risking it.

But sanitary health concerns aren't the only argument for the "over" camp. After all, the original patent for the toilet paper roll, issued in 1891, clearly shows the TP in the "over" position. Thank you for the clarity right from the get go, Mr. Wheeler.

toilet paper, bathrooms, over or under, toilet roll, bathroom etiquette The toilet paper roll was patented by Seth Wheeler in 1891.Public Domain


In Wheeler's patent, the perforated toilet paper hangs on a roll in the "over" position. In the words of the patent, the sheets of TP are “partially separated, having their points of attachment arranged in a novel manner, whereby each sheet will easily separate from the series as it is drawn from the roll, there being no litter occasioned, and any waste of paper is thereby prevented.”

Now, before the "under" folks come running with their pitchforks, there are some understandable exceptions to the "over" rule. Namely: cats and kids.

If you have a furry friend or a tiny toddler who likes to unroll the toilet paper roll, "over" makes it super fun for them, while "under" stops them in their tracks. For many people, cats and kids are the primary motivator of their TP hanging habits.

That doesn't change the fact that "over" is actually the "correct" way to hang toilet paper according to health science and the inventor's intention, of course, but "under" is certainly preferable to having a pile of TP on the floor.

Now go forth, do that with information as you will, and try to make peace with your over vs. under rivals.

This article originally appeared last year.

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Annoyed Texas comedian reads his HOA fine notice like it was written by William Faulkner

"They say my trash can lingers too long at the curb, lording like a broke cousin who don't know when to go home."

via Jerry Wayne Longmire (used with permission) and Canva/Photos

Jerry Wayne Longmire holding up a letter form his HOA.

America has a complicated relationship with HOAs, or homeowners’ associations. Eighteen percent of Americans, including 27% of homeowners, live in a community with an HOA; however, most of them don’t like it. Sixty-one percent of Americans say they’d rather live in a community without an HOA, and only 14% would prefer to live in one.

HOAs help people in planned communities maintain shared spaces, keep noise levels down, manage amenities such as swimming pools, and try to keep home values up by ensuring everyone maintains their property. But, to some, this feels like an extra layer of authority on top of the existing levels of government, which feels a bit overbearing.

Jerry Wayne Longmire, a former contractor turned stand-up comedian who lives in East Texas, received a letter from his HOA and pushed back against their authority in the most elegant and uniquely southern way possible. He responded with a social media post, written in the style of southern Gothic writer William Faulkner. Longmire is best known for his series of videos on Truck Astrology and his podcast, The Reckon Yard. He's also an avid reader who has been a lifelong fan of Faulkner's.

- YouTube youtu.be

Longmire’s eloquent letter is also hilarious with great lines such as:

“They say my trash can lingers too long at the curb, lording like a broke cousin who don't know when to go home. They call it unsightly, but I reckon a plastic bin scarred by sun and wind is no uglier than the souls who wrote this letter with clipboards for hearts.”

“They say my shutters are the wrong color, turquoise. Though to me, they are a hymn to the gulf where the water once baptized my boyhood. They demand beige, the color of cowardice.”

Longmire also had the Internet in stitches with a video where he responds to a nearly $700 electric bill like Faulkner. This time, unlike the HOA video, he puts the blame squarely on himself for tempting the gods to sleep in comfort in August.

@jerrywaynelongmire

Electric bill in the south #comedy #faulkner #electricbill #heat #airconditioning #texas #electricitybill #electricity

“Now I recall a time not too long ago, when a man could just sleep with just a fan on. Box fan in the window, sheets damp with his own resolve. But then came August. August, that devil and cargo shorts. She comes with air so thick you can taste the mosquitoes before they bite you. And I, a weak and weary creature, I touched the thermostat, dropped her down to 71. The sin of comfort,” Langmire says with dead seriousness. “Now I'm shackled, betrayed, and bound by wattage and poor choices. And yet I will do it again, for I have known the chill and I will not go back.”

Longmire does a great job at pointing out the rubs of modern life in America. We want quiet streets and some modicum of order, but really resent it when the judging eye of the HOA lands on property. We also want to sleep in comfort, but have to deal with the fact that electricity bills are only going up. You can’t beat the electric company or the HOA, but as long as guys like Longmire are around, at least we can have a good laugh about them.

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Woman calls out Champion for ill-placed pleat on new sweatpants and people are cackling

"It was so much worse than I thought it would be!"

Photo credit: Canva

Woman calls out Champion for ill-placed pleat making people cackle.

Pleats just make things cuter...most of the time. Pleated skirts and dresses give the clothing more movement and can make the entire outfit feel a little more feminine, if that's the look you're going for. Pleats in pants allow them to have a more shape-hugging fit while standing, but provide a less constricting fit when you sit. Sweatpants with pleats that make them look like slacks sounds like every boss babe's dream, except if you happened to purchase a pair of Champion's pleated sweatpants.

Dr. Marcy Crouch, a women's health clinical specialist and physical therapist, recently purchased a pair of Champion pleated sweatpants. To her confusion and horror, after holding up the low-rise business-casual-appearing sweatpants, she notices the pleats don't just hit the hip area like typical pleats in pants. There's an additional pleat down the center of the pants...in the front.

center pleat; pleated sweat pants; Champion; Target; center pleat; funny video Friends capturing happy moments with a selfie.Photo credit: Canva

The pleat itself is small, so you'd think it would be unnoticeable. But...it's not. In her now-viral TikTok video, Crouch is wearing leggings, making it easy for her to kick off her shoes and pull the sweatpants on to show just what the pleat does for her (or to her). Standing in front of the camera, there's nowhere else to look but at the suddenly inappropriate pleat in the front of her pants. Crouch wonders out loud how this design flaw made it into stores, while commenters had a blast making punny jokes that just won't quit.

"Listen Target, READ MY LIPS… 'Do better!" one person writes.

@thedowntheredoc Wow. Just wow @target @Champion ♬ original sound - Dr. Marcy Crouch, DPT, WCS

"Clams down best comment section in a while," another says.

"Are those from their Tulips collection?" someone else jokes.

One woman is thinking a large-scale act would really drive the point home: "I think all of us should buy a pair and make the rest of the country uncomfortable lol."

center pleat; pleated sweat pants; Champion; Target; center pleat; funny video Joyful moment with vibrant blue nails.Photo credit: Canva

Another commenter just wasn't ready for the reveal, saying, "I thought you were upset that sweatpants had a pleat down the center of the leg. I was not prepared."

Were women in the room when these pants were designed? One person thinks the answer is no. "Tell me these pants were designed and made by a team of men without telling me they were designed and made by a team of men …"

The center pleat defies all imagination before Dr. Crouch dons them for the camera, saying, "I already knew where it was going. Holy clam flaps, Batman. I was not expecting it to be that bad! They literally recreated the whole thing. That’s honestly impressive, in its own way."

center pleat; pleated sweat pants; Champion; Target; center pleat; funny video Embarrassed by the text, she covers her face in disbelief.Photo credit: Canva

Yes, this was approved and likely went through multiple quality checks before making it to the store, though one woman is in disbelief that these pants were vetted for sale, writing, "Someone designed it, and someone else approved the design, and then they made thousands of pairs…. Nobody batted an eye. Was there even one woman involved anywhere along the way??"

Are these pants still being sold in Target stores? Did Champion get into majora trouble over their pants that accentuate the thing they're supposed to cover? The world may never know. But for everyone's sake who wants to maintain eye contact with the women they're speaking with, let's hope these pants made it to their rightful place, in a Georgia O'Keeffe museum.

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Woman reveals take-home pay from $95k salary and it explains why everything is broken

It sounds like a lot, but viewers couldn't believe how fast her paycheck disappeared.

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A woman breaks down her $95k paychecks and people are surprised by what's left.

More money, more problems? Maybe not, but definitely some problems. Big ones. Making six figures ($100,000 per year or more) used to really mean something in America. It was a big milestone in someone's life and career, signaling, at least from the outside, that they had made it. They were officially a success. Six figures never necessarily meant that you were rich, but it definitely set you up for a very comfortable life. You could afford a home, a couple of kids, yearly vacations, the works.

My, how things have changed.

One woman recently took to social media to share exactly how far her near-six-figure salary goes, and it's not nearly as far as it used to be.

Kait Alayna, who posts on TikTok about personal finance, budgeting, and all things money, shared a video recently breaking down her $95,500 annual salary. (It's not six figures, but it's pretty close.)

"[My net paycheck] can seem kind of low for my salary," she says in the video, responding to a commenter. "So here's the breakdown of gross to net so you can see where all the funds are going."

In captions on the video, she shows that her gross paycheck is $3,979. $399.91 goes to her 401k contribution. Seventy-five dollars go to a health savings account, and she pays another $68.88 per pay period for health, dental, and vision insurance. A chunky $882.30 is taken out of her paychecks for taxes.

That leaves her with just $2,553 in her pocket per pay period. That's about $5,000 in monthly take-home pay.

For Alayna's next trick, we get to watch it all disappear!

@kaitalayna

Replying to @Faith Hainey my semi-monthly gross paycheck -> net paycheck breakdown #paytransparency #salarytransparency #paycheckbreakdown #PersonalFinance

Five thousand dollars per month is nothing to sneeze at, of course! By all accounts, Alayna is doing great in her life and career.

But it vanishes from bank accounts faster than ever in the year 2025. In another video, she breaks down her monthly budget, which she shares with her fiancé:

Rent is $1780, and the total of all of their "essential" costs like groceries, gas, car insurance, cell phones, etc. is a whopping $4600 per month. Again, some of these costs are shared between two people, but that's nearly all of Alayna's paycheck swallowed up right off the bat!

Crucially, they're spending an extra $700 per month on paying off debt like student loans, on top of the $550 mandatory payments. Together, they own over $60,000 in student loan and other debts. We don't know the terms of their loans, but it often takes people decades (or even a lifetime) to pay down balances like that.

Commenters could relate to Alayna's situation:

"I have the same salary, nearly the same deductions, and I take home $2200. We are in such a hard spot" one user wrote.

"I made $100k a year and only being home like $2400. FSA, 403b, retirement pension, taxes, college savings. Sometimes I’m like where is my money?!" one added.

"I make $145k and my take home after insurance, taxes, 401k, etc is $3800 bi monthly, I cry when I think about it" someone wrote.

"Mine is about the same. Once rent and car payment is taken out, just enough for groceries and like one night out," a commenter said.

"My salary is $95,481 and my net is super close to yours. It just doesn’t go as far as it used to!" added another.

"Money doesn’t buy what it used to. All of the necessities are priced up," someone summed up.


@kaitalayna

new month new budget 🫶 #budget #payday #salarytransparency #monthlybudget #financialliteracy #personalfinance

Making nearly six figures per year puts people like Alayna in a comfortable and enviable position. But the hype still doesn't match the reality in 2025.

Though it's enough for a comfortable life, it's still very difficult at that salary level to save for a house, travel regularly, retire early, or even have a family—you know, the fundamental promises America was built on. Alayna and her fiancé have to be extremely disciplined with putting money aside to ensure they can withstand emergency costs and go on the occasional vacation.

Fortune writes that, "A six-figure salary used to be considered wealthy—but now, most of these earners are struggling to stay afloat amid raging living costs and salary deflation. That’s because households making $100,000 annually are still considered 'middle-class' in every U.S. state."

Even earning $200,000 per year isn't considered upper-class in many places. Fortune adds that over half of Americans earning a six figure salary still described themselves as living paycheck to paycheck, and that number is growing every year.

Why? It's because this whole time that we've been thinking people who make six figures are "rich," the cost of living has been accelerating upward at breakneck speed. Groceries are about 25% more expensive than they were just a few years ago. In the last 10 years, the median home price has gone by over $131,000. The average cell phone bill, with smartphones now being a near-necessity to be a participant in modern society, is now about $141 per month. The federal minimum wage has not changed in that time, nor has it since 2009.

It's time to reset our expectations of what a living wage really is, and even who we consider to be rich. If someone who makes the coveted $100,000 per year is still living paycheck to paycheck, living and dying by the budget spreadsheet, and devoting a huge chunk of salary to paying off debts, what hope does anyone else have?

Alayna writes that she's thankful for her job, and she's making it her mission to help others with smart budgeting and money decisions. But until a carton of eggs becomes affordable again, almost everyone's going to have a tough time getting ahead.

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