A council worker was shocked when a huge lorry showed up loaded with thousands of rolls of toilet paper after accidentally ordering enough to last 12 years.
Town hall officials in Fuchstal, in the south-eastern German state of Bavaria, finally admitted the 2007 gaffe – which they say has actually saved them 1,000 EUR (860 GBP) – as the last of the bulk delivery has finally run out.
An absent-minded office worker mixed up the size of the packages they were ordering and accidentally ordered thousands of loo rolls instead of dozens.
The first anybody in the small town of fewer than 4,000 people knew was when a huge lorry packed with toilet paper rolled up at the town hall.
And it could have been even worse. Officials only just realised what had happened in time to cancel a second lorry load which had been about to set off for the town.
For the last 12 years, a team of council officers have been distributing the toilet rolls around loos at Fuchstal town hall, as well as in schools and other public buildings.
Mayor Erwin Karg confirmed: “The last roll has now been used.”
He said that in the end the massive error had a silver lining as it had actually saved the municipality some money.
Mayor Karg explained: “We managed to save more than 1,000 EUR this way as in the next years the price for wood and thus toilet paper rose.”
But he admitted he had preferred the old loo roll to the first new supplies the authority had needed to order in more than a decade.
Mayor Karg said: “It will absolutely be another 12 years before I have got used to the new paper!”
The council has confirmed that in future it will be ordering its toilet paper at regular intervals rather than in bulk.
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Story By: Koen Berghuis, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
