Dear Bog Roll Bandit,

Let’s begin with the basics. You know who you are. You’ve walked into the loo, seen that cardboard tube spinning on by with a single sheet of paper hanging on for dear life—and thought to yourself, “That’ll do.” No, it won’t. That one square isn’t helpful, it’s taunting us. It flaps there like a tiny white flag of passive-aggressive defiance, and quite frankly, I’m done.

Is it laziness? Anarchy? A misguided belief that you’re preserving resources for the greater good? Because what you’ve actually done is commit the domestic equivalent of a hit and run. You’ve left someone to face the existential horror of realising—too late—that there is no cavalry coming.

It’s not like replacing the roll is hard. We’re not asking you to rebuild Hadrian’s Wall. You don’t need a special licence. The spare rolls are always in the same place. You know where they are. We all do. They live there. That’s their little bog roll nest.

And yet, somehow, you decided to draw the line at one piece. Not two. Not enough for plausible deniability. One.

Perhaps you believe that leaving a single sheet absolves you from responsibility. “Ah,” you say, smugly, “I didn’t finish the roll, technically.” Well, congratulations. That’s the toilet paper equivalent of licking the last biscuit so no one else can have it.

Let’s talk logistics. That one square? Not absorbent. Not helpful. A panic-inducing whisper of a promise that crumbles at first contact. You’ve left people stranded, hobbling to the airing cupboard like medieval peasants searching for salvation.

And it’s never at a convenient time. No one discovers the One-Sheet Crime Scene mid-laundry day or when they’re casually scrolling. No, it happens in moments of urgent distress, when dignity hangs in the balance and fate lies in the hands of whoever was last in the loo.

If you’ve read this far and feel attacked—it’s because you should. This is your intervention. We’re not asking for heroics. We’re not even asking for emotional maturity. Just… change the bloody roll.

Sincerely,

Everyone Else

P.S. If you also squeeze the toothpaste from the middle, we’re not angry—we’re just deeply, profoundly disappointed.

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Kerry Freeman

Born and raised in Sheffield, Kerry Freeman is an unrepentant tea addict, cat enthusiast, and lifelong expert in the art of looking busy while doing the bare minimum. By day, she works as a minion in a government department (no, not one of the cute yellow ones with dungarees). By night, she brings her wicked sense of humour to untypicable.co.uk as an occasional contributor, where she fearlessly tackles life’s nonsense with sharp wit, historical references, and the occasional inappropriate joke.

Kerry has no children (by choice, obviously), but she does have a cat, which is basically the same thing but with more attitude and fewer school runs. When she’s not writing, you’ll probably find her at a historical re-enactment, enthusiastically pretending she’s living in another century—preferably one with fewer emails and better hats.

The post An Open Letter to the People Who Leave One Sheet on the Toilet Roll appeared first on untypicable..

CAST:

• You, an otherwise capable human being brought low by paranoia.
• The Front Door, smug and unreadable.
• The Keys, supporting role, crucial to the plot, uncooperative.
• Your Brain, a chaotic neutral force.
• The Street, the unforgiving stage upon which this drama unfolds.

SCENE ONE: THE DEPARTURE

You stand just outside your house. Bag slung over shoulder. Coat fastened. Face set with intent. You have places to be. Trains to catch. Schedules to honour.

With a satisfying click, the door closes behind you. You pat your pockets. Keys? Yes. Phone? Obviously. Wallet? Present and accounted for.

You walk down the street with confidence. You’re five steps away when it starts.

Your Brain:

“Did you lock the door?”

Of course you did. You remember doing it. You think. Probably. Didn’t you?

You slow your pace. One foot continues its stride while the other hesitates, like a man who’s suddenly remembered he’s left the oven on, the iron plugged in, and possibly a candle burning beside a curtain made of petrol-soaked crepe paper.

Your Brain (louder now):

“You didn’t check it. You just… walked away. Like a fool.”

You do a casual glance back at the house. Nothing amiss. The door looks closed. But you know that doesn’t mean anything. Doors can look closed and still be ever-so-slightly ajar. The breeze of chaos blows through gaps only your imagination can perceive.

SCENE TWO: THE TURNAROUND

Now eight paces from the house, you’ve fully stopped. You could keep walking, push through the doubt, trust your past self. But you don’t. Because—let’s be honest—your past self is a known liability. They’ve forgotten bags, birthdays, entire appointments. They can’t be trusted with security.

You turn around. Slowly. Casually. As if to the untrained eye, you’re simply admiring the local architecture. You rehearse your story in case anyone sees:

“Just had to pop back—left my… umbrella. Yes. Even though it’s July and I don’t own one.”

You return to the door. Stare it down. Grip the handle. Pull. Locked. Solid. No give. Not even a wobble. You nod, satisfied.

You step away again.

Your Brain:

“But did you really test it? Or did you just convince yourself you did?”

SCENE THREE: THE SECOND CHECK

You sigh, defeated. Return again. This time, with greater commitment. You jiggle the handle with excessive force, as though attempting to break in. You hope the neighbours aren’t watching. Or worse—they are, and this is the fifth time this month you’ve done this, and they now refer to you privately as “That One With The Lock Anxiety.”

You test it once more. You know it’s locked. You’ve felt it.

But now a deeper horror creeps in.

Your Brain:

“What if you locked it… but didn’t close it properly?”

You close your eyes. Breathe. This is madness. The door is closed. It must be closed. You clearly remember pushing it shut. The weight of it. The satisfying click. You know you did it.

Probably.

SCENE FOUR: THE Resolution (or Something Like It)

You walk away for the third time, muttering to yourself like a person who’s been slightly too long without social contact. This time, you don’t look back. You can’t. That way lies madness.

Still, twenty minutes later, on the bus, you will turn to your phone camera as a makeshift mirror and ask yourself, with the expression of a haunted Edwardian ghost:

“Did I check it properly? Or did I imagine checking it?”

The door is locked. Of course it is.

You’ll still think about it all day.

CURTAIN.

Encore performances available daily. Times vary. No ticket required. Mental peace not guaranteed.

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Dwight Warner

Dwight Warner is the quintessential oddball Brit, with a weirdly American-sounding name, who has a knack for turning the mundane into the extraordinary. Hailing originally from London, now living in the sleepy depths of Lincolnshire but claiming an allegiance to the absurd, Dwight has perfected the art of finding the surreal in real life. Whether it’s a spirited rant about the philosophical implications of queueing or a deep dive into why tea tastes better in a mug older than you, his blogs blur the line between the abstract and the everyday.

With an irreverent wit and a penchant for tangents that somehow come full circle, Dwight Warner doesn’t just write; he performs on the page. His humour is both sharp and delightfully nonsensical, like Monty Python met your nosiest neighbour and they decided to co-write a diary.

Known for being gregarious, Dwight is the life of any (real or metaphorical) party, whether he’s deconstructing the existential crisis of mismatched socks or sharing his inexplicable theories about why pigeons are secretly running the economy.

A larger-than-life personality with a laugh as loud as his opinions, Dwight Warner invites readers to step into a world where everything’s slightly askew—and that’s exactly how he likes it.

The post A Short Play Entitled: “Yes, I’ve Definitely Locked the Door” appeared first on untypicable..

There comes a time in life when you realise that your body is no longer the finely tuned machine it once was. Instead, it has become an unreliable second-hand car, complete with creaky joints, dodgy wiring, and a concerning tendency to misplace important parts (such as the ability to remember why you walked into a room). One minute, you’re effortlessly reading tiny ingredients lists on the back of a cereal box, and the next, you’re holding menus at arm’s length like an Elizabethan scholar examining a particularly baffling manuscript.

And so, the slow, undignified march into middle age begins.

The Great Glasses Conspiracy

It starts small. A mild inconvenience. Perhaps you notice that menus in dimly lit restaurants have become suspiciously blurry, as if the entire hospitality industry has collectively conspired to print everything in 6pt font just to annoy you. “It’s just eye strain,” you mutter, holding the menu at various distances like you’re attempting semaphore. You blame the lighting. You blame tiredness. You refuse to acknowledge that the problem might, in fact, be you.

Then comes the begrudging trip to the optician, where you are forced to admit that, yes, the tiny letters have betrayed you. After an absurdly expensive eye test that involves being aggressively puffed in the eye by a machine from the Spanish Inquisition, the optician cheerfully announces that, yes, you need reading glasses. Reading glasses. Two words that send a shiver down the spine of anyone still convinced they are, at heart, 27 years old.

From this moment on, you are doomed to own multiple pairs of glasses, all of which will mysteriously vanish at the precise moment you need them. They will lurk in obscure places—down the back of the sofa, inside the fridge, in your car’s glovebox, and occasionally, bafflingly, on top of your own head while you storm around the house ranting about how you just had them.

A Symphony of Clicks, Pops, and Grunts

One of the great betrayals of getting older is the realisation that your body has started providing its own sound effects. Sitting down? Click. Standing up? Pop. Walking up the stairs? A mild grunt of effort, as though you’re being asked to carry a small boulder rather than just yourself.

And then there’s the knees. At some point, for no apparent reason, they decide they’ve had enough. You bend down to tie your shoelace and suddenly find yourself in a game of chance—will you get back up smoothly, or will you need to make a series of increasingly dramatic noises while using a nearby chair for leverage?

Lying on the floor is now a full commitment. You no longer “drop down” to fetch something—you lower yourself carefully, with a moment of solemn contemplation beforehand. And once you’re down there? Well, you may as well make yourself comfortable, because getting up again is going to require some strategic planning and possibly a pulley system.

The Slow, Inevitable Shift in Conversation

One of the more alarming signs of middle age creeping up on you is the way conversations change. You don’t notice it at first. Then, one day, you find yourself earnestly discussing bin liners. And not just in passing—you have opinions. You listen intently while someone recommends a particularly sturdy brand, and you make a mental note to try them.

Weather discussions, once mere filler, now hold genuine value. “We needed that rain,” you hear yourself say, nodding sagely as if you are personally responsible for the success of the nation’s crops. You discuss traffic routes. You praise a well-planned roundabout. You tell people about a new shortcut you’ve discovered, despite the fact that they have shown no indication of caring.

You are, in short, becoming your parents.

Technology: The Unwinnable Battle

Once, you were ahead of the curve. You were the one explaining computers to baffled relatives. Now, technology has started moving suspiciously fast, as if deliberately trying to trip you up. Why does every app now have five different menus? Where did that button go? Why has the remote control suddenly gained 47 extra functions, none of which seem relevant to simply watching the news?

At some point, you will find yourself angrily pressing buttons in a manner that achieves nothing, as though sheer determination alone will force the device to behave. You will glare at your phone like it has personally betrayed you. You will issue increasingly frustrated sighs while pretending you are not struggling. You will also, at some point, call a younger family member for help, only to be told, “You just need to update it,” which somehow makes you irrationally furious.

The Secret Joys of Middle Age

But for all its indignities, there are perks. You no longer have to pretend to care about things that don’t interest you. You are free to embrace comfortable shoes and sensible bedtimes. You can openly declare that pubs are too loud and feel no shame in leaving early.

You develop an uncanny ability to fall asleep during films—not out of boredom, but because sitting still for too long now activates some sort of biological shutdown process. You also no longer care what’s cool, which is remarkably liberating. If you want to spend your weekend comparing different brands of garden shears, you absolutely will.

And, of course, nothing—nothing—will ever match the sheer satisfaction of an early night with a cup of tea, knowing that you no longer have to pretend you’d rather be out somewhere loud and exhausting.

Blame the Lighting

Yes, you might be squinting at menus and making involuntary noises when you get up. Yes, technology is beginning to feel like an elaborate prank designed to expose your incompetence. But if middle age has taught you anything, it’s that adaptation is key.

Need reading glasses? Get five pairs. Constant knee clicking? Pretend it’s a feature, not a flaw. Struggling with your phone? Just hand it to someone younger and pretend you could fix it but can’t be bothered right now.

And if all else fails, just blame the bad lighting. It worked for the menu, and it’ll work for everything else too.

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Dwight Warner

Dwight Warner is the quintessential oddball Brit, with a weirdly American-sounding name, who has a knack for turning the mundane into the extraordinary. Hailing originally from London, now living in the sleepy depths of Lincolnshire but claiming an allegiance to the absurd, Dwight has perfected the art of finding the surreal in real life. Whether it’s a spirited rant about the philosophical implications of queueing or a deep dive into why tea tastes better in a mug older than you, his blogs blur the line between the abstract and the everyday.

With an irreverent wit and a penchant for tangents that somehow come full circle, Dwight Warner doesn’t just write; he performs on the page. His humour is both sharp and delightfully nonsensical, like Monty Python met your nosiest neighbour and they decided to co-write a diary.

Known for being gregarious, Dwight is the life of any (real or metaphorical) party, whether he’s deconstructing the existential crisis of mismatched socks or sharing his inexplicable theories about why pigeons are secretly running the economy.

A larger-than-life personality with a laugh as loud as his opinions, Dwight Warner invites readers to step into a world where everything’s slightly askew—and that’s exactly how he likes it.

The post The Reluctant March into Middle Age appeared first on untypicable..

It begins innocently enough: a request to load the dishwasher. A simple task, one might think, requiring little more than a modest grasp of spatial awareness and a vague sense of cleanliness. Yet in the hands of my teenage son, this task transforms into a performance art piece, a chaotic collage of misaligned plates, teetering glasses, and bowls precariously stacked in ways that defy the laws of physics.

Every parent knows this struggle. Is the incompetence deliberate—a cunning strategy to escape future chores—or is it simply a manifestation of the teenage brain, a labyrinthine organ seemingly incapable of processing instructions like “cups go on the top rack”? As I stare at yet another dishwasher arrangement that seems more like a Dadaist statement than a functional load, I find myself pondering the deeper questions: Is this incompetence a cry for help, an act of rebellion, or just the inevitable consequence of a distracted mind?

The Psychology of the Dishwasher Disaster

Teenagers operate in a world of their own making, one where logic bends and priorities skew. To them, a dishwasher isn’t a tool of domestic efficiency; it’s a chore, and chores are the enemy. This simple framing explains much of their behavior. Why align plates properly when it’s easier to toss them in randomly? Why ensure the spray arms aren’t blocked when that requires five extra seconds of effort?

Yet there’s more at play here than simple laziness. Consider the “if it fits, it sits” philosophy. To a teenager, the goal isn’t optimization; it’s closure. Once the door closes (even if it bulges ominously), the task is complete. The results are secondary, because in their eyes, the dishwasher exists merely to fulfill the parental demand to “do something.”

And then there’s selective blindness—the mysterious inability to see entire categories of items. You’ll find the plates loaded, the glasses vaguely in place, but the cutlery? Forgotten. Always. The spoons languish on the counter, abandoned as if their inclusion in the dishwasher is optional. It’s not laziness; it’s a neurological enigma, a kind of household chore amnesia unique to teenagers.

Sociological Observations: The Dishwasher as a Stage

In the grand sociological landscape of household chores, the dishwasher represents an entry-level task. It’s the first rung on the ladder of domestic responsibility, a stepping stone to loftier duties like cooking or managing finances. But teenagers are nothing if not strategic. By performing this task poorly, they subtly protest their placement on the hierarchy.

In fact, their ineptitude could be viewed as a low-stakes rebellion. Unlike outright refusal, which invites confrontation, bad dishwasher loading is a quieter defiance. It’s a way to challenge parental authority without actually saying “no.” After all, you can’t be blamed for trying.

There’s also a clash of priorities at play. For parents, the dishwasher is a puzzle to solve, a symphony of plates and glasses arranged in harmonious efficiency. For teenagers, it’s an obstacle between them and their next TikTok scroll. What we see as an act of domestic order, they see as a tiresome interruption.

The Long Game: Is This Incompetence Deliberate?

Here’s a thought that haunts every parent at some point: is this bad dishwasher loading intentional? Is my son playing the long game, banking on the hope that if he’s bad enough at this task, I’ll eventually stop asking him to do it?

It’s a compelling theory, and one supported by anecdotal evidence from parents everywhere. The first few times, you correct their technique. “Plates go here, bowls go there, and for the love of all that is holy, don’t block the spray arm.” The next time, you demonstrate. But eventually, frustration mounts. You find yourself muttering, “It’s easier if I just do it myself.” And that, of course, is the teenager’s ultimate victory.

But what if this incompetence isn’t deliberate? What if it’s just…who they are? Some people have an innate gift for spatial reasoning; others struggle to load a shopping bag, let alone a dishwasher. Maybe it’s not a ploy. Maybe it’s simply their Kryptonite.

Parental Coping Strategies

1. The Dishwasher Tutorial
   There’s a fine line between parental guidance and full-blown micromanagement, but a hands-on tutorial might help. Walk them through the process step by step. Use diagrams if necessary. Just be prepared for the glazed expression that suggests they’ve already mentally checked out.
2. Adjust Your Expectations
   Perfection is the enemy of progress. If the dishes come out vaguely clean and the door shuts, consider it a win. Learning to let go might be the key to maintaining your sanity.
3. Embrace the Chaos
   Sometimes, it’s easier to let them load the dishwasher their way, then quietly fix it later. Is this enabling bad behavior? Probably. But is it worth your peace of mind? Absolutely.
4. Incentivize Competence
   Teenagers respond well to rewards. Promise extra screen time or their favorite snack in exchange for a properly loaded dishwasher. It’s bribery, sure, but effective bribery.

Conclusion: A Life Lesson in Disguise

Incompetent dishwasher loading isn’t just a household chore gone awry—it’s a microcosm of parenting itself. It’s messy, frustrating, and often defies logic, but it’s also an opportunity. As much as I’d like to roll my eyes and take over, I remind myself that this is part of the process. My son won’t always live under my roof, and someday, he’ll have his own dishwasher to load.

Will he do it perfectly? Probably not. But by then, he’ll have his own teenager to complain about. And when that day comes, I’ll sit back, smile, and let him know that dishwasher incompetence is a family tradition.

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AJ Wright

AJ Wright is a quiet yet incisive voice navigating the surreal world of sociology, higher education, and modern life through the unique lens of a neurodivergent mind. A tech-savvy PhD student hailing from South Yorkshire but now stationed in the flatlands of Lincolnshire, AJ writes with an irreverence that strips back the layers of academia, social norms, and the absurdities of daily life to reveal the humour lurking beneath.

As an autistic thinker, AJ’s perspective offers readers a rare blend of precision, curiosity, and wit. From dissecting the unspoken rituals of academia—like the silent war over the office thermostat—to exploring the sociology of “neurotypical small talk” and the bizarre hierarchies of campus coffee queues, AJ turns the ordinary into something both profound and hilarious.

AJ’s unassuming nature belies the sharpness of their commentary, which dives deep into the intersections of neurodiversity, tech culture, and the often-overlooked quirks of human behaviour. Whether questioning why university bureaucracy feels designed by Kafka or crafting surreal parodies of academic peer reviews, AJ writes with a balance of quiet intensity and playful absurdity that keeps readers coming back for more.

For those seeking a blog that is equal parts insightful, irreverent, and refreshingly authentic, AJ Wright provides a unique perspective that celebrates neurodiversity while poking fun at the peculiarities of the world we live in.  Also a contributor at Thinking Sociologically.

untypicable.co.uk

The post Why My Teenage Son Simply Cannot Load The Dishwasher Properly… appeared first on untypicable..