Remember your childhood New Year’s resolutions? Probably not, but you might remember writing them down.

I would take a roll of toilet paper, which, during World War II wasn’t soft and fluffy as today’s brands, and pull down enough to write down what I wanted to change. I think I made up a lot just to have enough to say. I imagined my parents unrolling it and reading and reading, laughing, then wondering when it would stop. I never thought they’d actually care that I was wasting paper, something I learned during the war to never do. The outer wrap said “Facial Quality, Double-Ply, Bathroom Tissue.” Why didn’t it just come out and say what it was without that camouflage!

I asked my older sister. She said the wrapper used a euphemism. Whew. I had trouble pronouncing that and thought maybe it was a brand. My sister said euphemism was a substitution of a word that other people might not like for a word that they will. Like “death” gets changed to “passed on,” or “garbage man” to “sanitation engineer.” Toilet bothers a lot of people -- otherwise public ones would actually be called by that name and not “little girls room,” or the “restroom,” and such. Who goes to the bathroom to rest!

So, I learned, if I announced I was going to write my new year's resolutions on facial-quality bathroom tissue it’d sound chic, but if I said I’d planned next year's promises on toilet paper it’d conjure up yuks.

My next dilemma was: should I unroll and start at the top or write on the first sheet and work my way up? If I unroll it first, then my mom would have to unroll to start reading and roll up the paper as she goes along. I thought that’d be more dramatic. I knew my dad would go nuts watching the whole thing flop down until the cardboard roll appeared. Then he'd have to read and roll at the same time. This vision was more fun than my New Year’s resolutions.

I had cellophane tape handy for the rips that I’d have to repair. With a greasy crayon-type pencil that my mom used on Mason jars during canning of her vegetables grown in our Victory Garden, I began.

Next year I promise I’ll try and be nicer to my sisters.

I’ll try and not make up excuses to get out of house chores.

I’ll really try and practice the piano without whining.

I won’t tell lies to get my sisters in trouble.

I’ll stop using that I’m the middle child so I make my parents feel guilty that they are either starting at the first or the last for things.

I’ll walk the dog and not just play with her (but I won’t clean up after her when she’s sick as that’s Mom’s job).

And so it went, square after square. I carefully rolled up my resolutions and placed the cylinder on my parents’ bed as I just didn’t think it was appropriate to place on the kitchen table.

Wished the whole family Happy New Year, and began to write in my diary.

Does any of this trigger memories for some of you?