ON A ROLL: JUDGING THE VALUE OF TOILET PAPER

You duck into a public restroom, a stall finally becomes available, and you realize too late that there's no toilet paper.

That's annoying.

In some countries, things like telephone directory pages, sand and stone stand in for tissue.

That's scary, and probably not too comfortable, either.

Toilet paper is one of those commodities that's under appreciated until it's unavailable.

The fourth annual Quilted Northern Toilet Paper report asked international travel writers to rate toilet paper around the world.

The United States ranked first -- voted No. 1 by 73 percent of the writers surveyed -- for tissue with a soft, smooth texture and an abundant supply of the stuff.

Western Europe ranked a distance second, voted tops by 6 percent of the survey respondents.

The survey also showed that 79 percent of the respondents rated toilet paper in the United States as "very good."

In Japan and Germany, toilet paper was voted "good" by 34 percent and 38 percent, respectively.

France's cuisine and fashion may be world-renowned, but their toilet paper was voted only "average" by 47 percent of the respondents. Kenya and Mexico were also voted average by 42 and 35 percent, respectively.

At the bottom of the list were Russia and China, voted "unbearable" by 57 percent and 60 percent, respectively.

The United Kingdom and the former Soviet Union brought up the rear, tying for the dubious honor of having the worst toilet paper, each garnering 11 percent of the vote.

Asked what qualities constituted bad toilet paper, 53 percent said rough texture, and 21 percent said scarcity.

Other regions also ranked poorly in the toilet paper survey. Ten percent said the Middle East had the worst toilet paper, while 9 percent said South Central Asia, Southeast Asia and China had the worst.

In some cases, the mere presence of toilet paper is reason to be thankful, especially in the world's more remote restrooms.

Milton Mann, a travel photographer and writer, reports that in Tonga, a small island in the South Pacific, the paper available isn't what most Westerners are used to.

"People use pages from an international phone directory hung on the wall by a piece of rope," Mann said.

In the Middle East, it's common practice to use sand or a stone instead of toilet paper.

Some of the writers suggested tourists traveling abroad adopt a BYOTP (Bring Your Own Toilet Paper) policy.

"Outside the big cities in Asia, it is a common practice to use a bucket of water instead of toilet paper," said Randy Curwen, the travel editor of the Chicago Tribune. "People who are used to Western standards might be more comfortable bringing their own toilet paper."

The survey revealed that 40 percent of respondents sometimes take their own tissue with them while they travel. And 20 percent of the men, as opposed to 4 percent of the women, said they always take their own toilet paper along.

Bathroom reading

The fourth annual Quilted Northern Toilet Paper report shows 53 percent of survey respondents ranked bathrooms in the United States as the world's best. And what makes a great bathroom? Cleanliness, said 61 percent of travel writers surveyed. Incidentally, China was voted as having the world's worst bathrooms.

Here's the bottom line on bathrooms through time.

-- Homes in the Indus River Valley had bathrooms as early as 3000 B.C.

-- Ancient Minoan families on the isle of Crete lived in homes equipped with pipe systems intended to carry off waste.

The palace of Versailles, built in the 17th century, housed the French royal family, 1,000 noblemen and 4,000 servants -- but not a single indoor bathroom. The White House, on the other hand, has 32 restrooms.

-- The first flushing toilet was invented in 1775 by Englishman Alexander Cunningham, but it was another century before flush toilets replaced chamber pots and outhouses.

-- Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was the first American to have plumbing installed in his home in 1840.

Skipping to the Loo

Some people powder their noses. Some people use the little boys' room. Some use the facilities. Here are some early euphemisms for using the restroom:

-- Israelites visited the "house of honor."

-- Ancient Egyptians went to the "house of the morning."

-- Monks went to the garderobe, the necessarium and the reredorter (literally, the room at the back of the dorm).

-- The Tudors used the privy ("place of privacy") or the jakes ("Jack's place," and possibly the predecessor to term "john.")

-- "The bog house" was a popular term in the 17th century and up to the beginning of this century.

A tissue of TP facts

They're called the "good old days," but that might depend on your perspective. Here are a few of the items used before toilet paper was invented:

-- Mussel shells

-- Corn cobs, especially popular here in the United States.

-- Miniature hockey sticks made of wood or precious metal were a favorite of the ancient Romans

-- A sponge on the end of a stick.

The first commercially packaged bathroom tissue was introduced by Joseph Gayetty, an American, in 1857. Sold in stacks of 50 individual sheets, the paper was thick and splintery and bore Gayetty's name on each sheet.