Changing Toilet Paper Rolls and Humility

I live in a house with six other people and three bathrooms. You would think that the odds of my having to change the toilet paper rolls would be pretty evened out, especially since I don't even use one of the bathrooms in the house all that often. And still I would guess that on the average I change about three or four rolls a week anyway. It is a simple act of humble service, and one that I should do without even thinking about, but still it makes me grumble most times because it just makes me mad to think that the last person that used the toilet paper should have had the common courtesy to change out the used up roll. In my family I am lucky if they had the decency to even look for another roll to set on the back of the toilet. And yet I change the rolls.

Then I work in an office of four women and two bathrooms. I would bet that I change the rolls there about once a week too. Maybe once every other week. I don't mind that so much, but there is one person I work with who will get it down to the last square left so that she can avoid using the last square, so that she can be justified in not changing the roll. That really irritates me. And yet I change the rolls.

It occurred to me today when I had to use the restroom at Mass, and encountered two bathroom stalls, both of which were in need of roll changes, that perhaps my having to change the rolls was a way for me to be of service to my fellow sisters in Christ (brothers in Christ in my home and in Unisex bathrooms). Maybe I should be willing to do this simple act of service and kindness with a humble heart since it really doesn't ask that much of me without my regular complaining and griping about how unfair it is that I seem to be the one that "always" has to do it. Maybe I should take this on as my ministry. I can be the "roll changer".

Surely it makes more sense to do it with love, than to do it with a grudge, or out of spite. Wow, could something so simple be something that might change me? I guess we will see the next time I am confronted with an empty roll on the spool.

Pax