How to Write Toilet Paper-Saving Bathroom Poetry

You learn something new every day. Case in point: people who read simple conservation-themed poems about toilet paper while they're on the john are inclined to use less of it. It's true.

The blogosphere has been loving the results from a new Japanese study that's found that having poetry in bathrooms reduces toilet paper use by 20 %. (How could it not? It combines two of the internet's most loved subjects: strange-but-true factoids and potty humor.)

Part of the study reveals that people use more toilet paper when they're not in their own homes, the assumption being they don't have to pay for it, so why skimp?

Now, this got me to thinking: what does this mean to us, besides providing us with a humorous cocktail party-ready quip? And then it dawned on me: it could help you save toilet paper at cocktail parties! And other social gatherings, of course. Logic follows from the above that guests will be more likely to help themselves to extra TP since it's on the house.

How to Write Toilet Paper Poetry

But if you place your own toilet paper poem on your bathroom wall, not only will your guests get a kick out of the concept, but they might take it easier on the roll. You could really help green the toilet paper use. Disclaimer: depending on how classy your parties are (if they're like mine, then they fall into the 'not-very' category), it might even lead to potty poem brainstorming sessions.

Plus, it's an excuse to write hilarious, juvenile poems about toilets.

Here are some quick tips and examples to get you started.

1. Keep it short, and make it rhyme. Toilet paper poems are always better when they rhyme, another independent study conducted by me and my equally juvenile friends has found.

First consider the paper and you may simply find

You don't need that much to clean your behind

2. It should be conservation-themed. For example:

'Waste not want not' a wise man once said,

This of course applies whilst you sit on the head

3. Double entendres always impress. Especially when it comes to toilet humor.

There are only so many trees,

So use but what you need.

4. Include outside references when possible. Maybe you'll recognize this from the Seinfeld episode. Maybe not.

Now it really is true that the trees do care-

And if she in the stall oe'r runs out of ply

Think of the plants and don't spare her a square

Then tell her you're saving the Earth, that's why

Well, that's about all the advice I can muster on toilet paper poetry. Leave your bathroom poems in the comments below—let's start a movement.