TIFU by never flushing toilet paper

If I read this title yesterday morning I would’ve been like “…okay? Why is that a fuck up?”, but after last night I have realized this is what normal people do.

For backstory, I would never flush my used toilet paper for two reasons. The first reason being when I was a little kid, a plumber had to come and messed around with the tank in the back and said that a bunch of baby wipes were flushed and not to do that. My mom specifically told me “do not flush ANYTHING that’s not shit down the toilet” so that’s what I did from that point forward. The second reason was because there was always a trash can next to the toilet, so naturally my brain went “this is where the toilet paper goes instead of the toilet” and I would always put it in there. So that’s the premise.

Slightly more backstory. I’ve been seeing my girlfriend for a few years and in her parents house, she also has the same toilet-trash set up – the key differences being that there’s never a bag in it and there was never anything inside of it. So I would flush the toilet paper down the toilet because I didn’t want to get shit on the bin, but I would feel really guilty because I thought it would fuck up their pipes so I would actively avoid using the bathroom at her parents house. Fast forward a year and we moved in together in an apartment and I made it a point to grab a trash can with a lid for the bathroom so that it doesn’t smell in there and a bunch of trash bags, my girlfriend was confused but didn’t really question me.

So, this is where the fuck up happens. Last night I was visiting my mom with my girlfriend and her family, so in total there’s about 10 of us. Earlier that day, I had gone to Dave’s Hot Chicken and got the Reaper sandwich which was now running through me with a vengeance. I went to the bathroom, did my deed, then decided to be thoughtful and not stink up the bathroom by taking out the trash with the now used toilet paper. I walked through the living room with the bag to throw it in the trash outside when my mom asked me why I was throwing the bathroom trash out, it wasn’t full. I said “so that it wouldn’t stink up the bathroom” because I’m thoughtful like that. My mom looked so confused and asked me why the trash would smell, keep in mind this is infront of everyone. I’m close with my girlfriend’s family at this point, so I jokingly said “what am I not supposed to wipe?”. I cannot understate how quiet that room got, I have tinnitus and I swear even that went away for a few seconds. I just thought the joke didn’t land, so I went outside, threw the trash out, and then came back inside to everyone still just as confused as I was. My girlfriend’s brother who is my age asked me if I was serious. I said I was, and me being the dumbass I am, decided this was a good time to bring up how weird it was that at their house they didn’t have a bag in the trash and that I felt guilty every time I flushed toilet paper down the toilet. Everyone started laugh-crying.

Apparently, it actually very normal to flush toilet paper down the toilet and I was the weird one here – a 24 year old, fully formed adult was not aware of the fact toilet paper can go down the drain and not cause issues. I tried to justify myself, to which there was no justification I could give, and spent the rest of the night embarrassed. And now my girlfriends entire family and my entire family knows that for at least 18 years I was not flushing my used toilet paper.

TL;DR: I inadvertently outed my bathroom habit of not flushing used toilet paper infront of mine and my girlfriends families.