Electric Toilet Paper

My husband's great-uncle was a child of The Depression. Like many children who grew up never knowing if there would be enough to eat at supper, Uncle Bill became a great stockpiler in his later years. When he died, he left a modest two-bedroom home crammed full of "emergency supplies."

A short list of some of the items that I understand were in his basement:

Dozens of cases of Coca-Cola, three gallons of mayonnaise, an ancient glass gallon-jar of "sweet and sour mixed fruit", forty or so cans of tomato soup. Fifty pounds of ice melt, and hundreds of rolls of paper towels and toilet paper.

When the in-laws cleaned out Bill's house, they gifted us with some of the paper products, name-brand, still in their original packaging. An excellent deal for both parties: they get rid of a bunch of junk, we save money on paper towels for the next year.

The only problem is that whenever the paper towels or the toilet paper get damp, they smell like hot electrical wires. This turns cleaning up a spilled cup of tea into a "Where's Waldo"-type hunt for the outlet that smells like it should be smoking. It means a trip to the bathroom often leaves me wondering if maybe I should unplug my electric toothbrush once in a while.

Hey, but as least my life has some ... er ... spark.