Dear Northern Quilted,

A couple weeks ago when my husband came home from grocery shopping with your brand of toilet paper, I was irate.

"Northern Quilted?!?" I demanded. "Where's my Charmin?"

"What are you talking about?" he asked, looking at me like it was the first time we'd ever discussed toilet paper brands. "This is two ply. It's less expensive. 'Nuf said."

"I mean, I could understand Cottonelle," I went on, "but Northern Quilted?!?" I didn't let up. "WHAT were you thinking?"

He just stared. Blinked a couple times. Shrugged his shoulders.

"You don't understand," I cried.

"I guess you're right," he admitted. "I don't."

"I have to wipe myself every time I use the bathroom. You only wipe sometimes. And maybe hardly ever at all at home," I tried to explain, exasperated that this wasn't all more obvious. "That makes me the toilet paper expert. And if I say that Charmin is the way to go, why don't you believe me?" I asked.

He shrugged again.

The next time I was in the store, I bought some Charmin. But there were still two rolls of our Northern Quilted left. Now, Northern Quilted Executives, I'm sure you're wondering at this point why I'm writing you this letter. So let me cut to the chase. Your toilet paper has nearly saved Christmas. Seriously. Please, let me explain.

You see, I did all our Christmas shopping last week, and I was trying to avoid returning to the grocery store until after the holiday. I thought we had two rolls of paper towel, but it turns out I was wrong. Yesterday, when we ran out of paper towel, we shifted to napkins. But today, we ran out of napkins. Just as our Christmas brunch guests were arriving.

We made it through brunch, but when it came time to start cleaning, we weren't sure what we would do. Jason was scrubbing the glass-top stove, scraping the stuck-on food with a razor blade.

"Try the Northern Quilted toilet paper," I quipped. "It's rough enough. And we sure don't have any other use for it."

He laughed. But then he figured he may as well give it a shot. And darned if it didn't work terrifically. It didn't fall apart. It didn't get all soggy and stringy. Sure, it's not quite as harsh in texture as a paper towel, but apparently it's just as sturdy.

So, Northern Quilted, I'm writing first to thank you for your fine, quality toilet paper, which we are now using as paper towel replacements. And I'm also writing to suggest you re-market your toilet paper. It's not as soft as you claim in your commercials. But it is very soft for paper towels. I think you could rival Bounty-- because the Northern Quilted was a much quicker picker-upper. It did beautiful cleaning work in our home. I myself would be happy to buy a Northern Quilted paper towel.

Thank you for saving our pre-Christmas cleaning with your toilet paper/ paper towel product.

Happy Holidays,

Karen S.