This week, we’re staying at our cousin’s house in Colorado, and yesterday morning, we woke up to find the house had been toilet-papered! Our little kids were wide-eyed with fascination and delight — they had never witnessed anything like this before.
Did you ever go toilet-papering as kid? As a teenager, I loved it. It felt sneaky, and a little cheeky (toilets!), but ultimately harmless. I ran with a pretty straight-laced group of friends (no drinking or partying), so toilet-papering was a good outlet for excess energy on the weekend. We would toilet paper friends’ homes, the homes of boys we had crushes on, even the homes of teachers we knew could take a joke. And I loved when my house was the target as well. I felt like it implied that people knew my family had a sense of humor.
In contrast, a friend that grew up on the East Coast, told me toilet-papering was considered as serious vandalism in her town, and that people were offended by it. So I know it means different things in different communities.
What’s your take: Innocent pastime? Or would you be offended if your house was toilet-papered (no egging, no forks in the lawn, just plain-old toilet paper)? Did you ever try it as a kid? Would you let your own kids toilet-paper someone’s house?
I grew up in Seattle–damp–but I feel it was mostly done in good humor. To someone we enjoyed & knew was good natured. Just TP, no vandalism or anything that could really do damage. My dad was a church leader so we were targeted a couple times by brave souls, other times our youth leaders would start the fun. Never ever to be really mean. My mom (class advisor) even took us to do our clergyman’s home once. We left a cheerful poster and he called to thank us!
Southwest Louisiana, we love rolling houses on homecoming week! And it starts tomorrow night for us! We are prepared …… we are gonna let them start rolling and then turn on our big speaker yelling something to scare them, then the big spot light goes on with all the water hoses! I can’t wait. But if u clean it up then they come the next night! I think us adults are going to enjoy this to much. And we live way way out the city limits so its no big deal to make all this chaos. All the neighbors are all preparing to do their own little scare tactic!