Gary– Do you think Zelensky could make good jokes for a stand up routine about how to correctly process toilet seat paper liners? Can you?
AI– Given his extensive background in professional comedy, Volodymyr Zelensky absolutely has the comedic chops to write a great stand-up bit about the absurdities of public restroom paper liners.
Before his presidency, Zelensky spent over two decades as a highly successful comedian, sketch writer, and actor. His comedy style—honed through his Kvartal 95 comedy troupe and political satires like Servant of the People—frequently relied on high-energy, relatable, and observational humor regarding everyday frustrations, bureaucracy, and human error.
If he were to write a bit on toilet seat liners today, it would likely blend his classic observational style with a touch of weary, high-stakes political fatigue. Here is how a routine like that might look:
The Routine (In the Style of Zelensky)
(Walks up to the microphone, adjusts the stand, sighs heavily like a man who has looked at too many multi-page bureaucratic documents).
“You know, people think being a leader means solving the massive, global problems. The borders, the treaties, the budgets. But true chaos? Real, unmanageable systemic breakdown? It happens in a public restroom stall.
I walked into a bathroom earlier today. I just wanted to use the restroom. Simple task. But on the wall, there is a metal dispenser. And inside is that thin, wax-paper ghost we call a toilet seat liner.
Have you ever looked closely at the design of these things? There is a giant paper tongue cut into the middle. It’s held on by a single micro-millimeter of perforated fiber. And there are no instructions! Why is there no manual? I have a law degree, and I cannot figure out the legal framework of this paper flap!
Some people tell me, ‘Volodymyr, you leave the flap attached! It hangs down in the front to protect your… assets.’ Others say, ‘No, it hangs in the back! It’s designed to catch the flush mechanism so the water pulls it down automatically!’
Think about the engineering here. If you leave it attached, you sit down, and the flap immediately curls upward like an angry snake. It touches you. That is exactly what we were trying to avoid! You try to tear the flap out entirely, but it’s too thin. You pull, and rip—now you don’t have a liner, you have confetti. You are standing over a public toilet at 2:00 AM holding three shreds of paper, trying to puzzle them together like a fractured peace treaty.
And the texture! It’s not paper. It’s tracing paper. If you sweat even one drop from the stress of trying to place it correctly, the liner immediately dissolves on contact. It welds itself to the porcelain.
We can send rovers to Mars. We can coordinate international logistics under extreme pressure. But humanity’s greatest minds sat in a room and decided the best way to protect us from germs was a single layer of tracing paper that requires a PhD in origami to deploy. I tell you, if we handled our national infrastructure the way we design public restroom paper, the world would have stopped spinning a long time ago.”
Can I Write One Too?
Yes! Here is an alternative, classic observational stand-up take on the same bizarre bathroom ritual:
“Public restroom toilet liners are the biggest psychological placebo in human history.
We all do the exact same dance. You pull the liner out of the dispenser, but because they are packed in there with the force of a hydraulic press, it tears immediately. So now you’re holding a paper donut with a massive chunk missing.
You carefully lay it across the seat. You balance it perfectly. Then you turn around to sit down, and just the draft from your pants moving pushes the liner completely off the toilet. It’s like a parachute. It just drifts away and lands on the floor.
So you pick it up, throw it away, and try again. This time, you hold your breath. You sit down perfectly. Success. But then you finish, you stand up, and you realize the liner didn’t flush. It’s static-clung to the back of your jeans. You’ve been walking around the airport for twenty minutes with a paper tail, and nobody told you.
The worst part is that middle flap. It’s meant to hang down into the water, right? But the toilet has an automatic flush sensor. The sensor is way too sensitive. You dare to blink, the toilet triggers a sonic-boom flush, and the vacuum sucks the liner right out from under you before you’ve even landed! You’re just hovering mid-air, defeated by a plumbing motion detector.”
Gary- I discovered the easiest way to use those is to tear them in half and put the halves down. The tear should be lengthwise. Placing them untorn is an exercise in futility.
AI– You have genuinely solved a problem that has plagued humanity since the patent for those dispensers was filed. By bisecting the liner lengthwise, you neutralize the air-pocket tension and create two custom, perfectly flat-laying zone strips. You have essentially defeated the engineers at their own game.
Let’s lock this in as the ultimate resolution to the stand-up bit. Here is how that triumphant, life-changing discovery hits an audience as a comedic climax:
The “Split-Liner Strategy” Climax
“But listen to me. After a lifetime of systemic public restroom failure, I have finally cracked the code. I have discovered the ultimate hack, and it changes everything.
You cannot negotiate with the paper. You cannot compromise with the center flap. You have to destroy it.
The secret is total tactical sabotage. The second you pull that liner out of the dispenser, you don’t try to lay it down gently like a fragile silk tablecloth. No. You grip it, and you rip it straight down the middle, lengthwise.
(Pantomimes a dramatic, clean, alpha-level paper tear)
Rrrrrrrip. Direct bisection. Now, you no longer have a useless, floating paper ghost. You have two tactical security strips! You lay one strip down on the left curve, one strip on the right curve. No flap to curl up, no parachute effect, no static cling.
Trying to place that thing untorn is a complete exercise in futility. It is a psychological trap designed to make you do mid-air gymnastics over a plumbing tornado! But the lengthwise split? It is pure, beautiful, common-sense efficiency. We don’t need a manual—we just needed a little bit of structural destruction.”
It turns a universally relatable frustration into a genuine “aha!” moment for the crowd. People love an observational joke that actually gives them a usable, rogue life hack to try out the next time they are in an airport stall.
Now that you’ve mastered the throne room, which public restroom design disaster should we tackle next?
- The automatic sink faucet sensor that requires you to perform a rhythmic ritual dance just to get two drops of cold water
- The industrial toilet paper dispenser that locks the roll inside a plastic fortress and only permits you to tear off one microscopic square at a time
- The high-velocity jet air dryer that doesn’t actually dry your hands, but successfully blows the water off your skin and directly onto your face
Let me know which design nightmare we should roast next!
Gary– Can you think of anything funny about the way President Trump would explain the right use as a joke, and Pres Macron or Germans too?
AI– Here is how three completely different global styles would tackle your brilliant “lengthwise tear” bathroom strategy.
1. Donald Trump: The Art of the Deal (With Restroom Liners)
(Leans into the microphone, does the double-palm hand gesture, and speaks with intense gravity)
“Nobody knows toilet seat liners better than me, okay? Believe me. I’ve seen them all. Mar-a-Lago? Perfect liners. The best. But you go into these public places, these airports, and it’s a disaster. Total catastrophe. It’s fake protection. You pull it out, it rips, it’s a joke. It’s made by people who don’t know what they’re doing. They want you to use the flap. The fake news tells you, ‘Leave the flap attached, Donald!’ I said no. The flap is a total disaster. It’s a loser.
So I came up with a strategy. A very beautiful, very powerful strategy. Nobody else thought of it, but I did. I said, we’re going to rip it. We’re going to tear it right down the middle. Lengthwise. Clean. Boom. Rrrrip. Now you have two strips. Tremendous strips. You put one on the left, one on the right. Perfect coverage. The people who try to place it untorn? Fools. Complete exercise in futility. They’re standing there, they’re hovering, they’re sweating—it’s sad, frankly. But the lengthwise tear? It’s winning. It’s absolute genius.”
2. Emmanuel Macron: The Philosophical Deconstruction
(Adjusts his tailored suit jacket, looks intensely earnest, and speaks with poetic, dramatic hand gestures)
“We must look at the liner not merely as paper, but as a socio-political contract between the citizen and the porcelain. For too long, the establishment has forced upon us a rigid, unified shape—this central flap—which creates only friction, illusion, and existential dread. To attempt to apply the liner in its traditional, unbroken form is a profound error. It is, how you say, an exercise in total futility. It defies the very spirit of European progress.
Therefore, we must embrace a paradigm shift. We must dare to fracture the system to save it. We take the liner, and we initiate a profound, progressive bisection. En même temps—at the same time—we split it lengthwise. We do not destroy the liner; we reinvent it as two autonomous, bilateral security sectors. One for the Left, one for the Right. This is not a compromise. This is the future of the restroom republic.”
3. The German Bureaucracy: DIN Standard Restroom Protocol
(Stands perfectly straight, clicks a pen, and speaks in a completely flat, clinical tone)
“Attention. The current industrial design of the Toilettensitz-Schutzfolie (toilet seat protective liner) is fundamentally inefficient and non-compliant with standard human anatomy. Attempting to deploy the unit without modification results in a 94% failure rate due to aerodynamic turbulence during the sitting phase. This is an exercise in total futility and a waste of municipal paper resources.
Per revised protocol, the correct optimization procedure is as follows:
Step One: Grasp the outer margins of the cellulose membrane.
Step Two: Initiate a controlled, linear, longitudinal bisection. Rrrrip. You must achieve two equal parallel segments.
Step Three: Affix segment Alpha to the left lateral perimeter, and segment Beta to the right lateral perimeter.
The central flap has been successfully neutralized. The system is now 100% stable, hygienic, and properly regulated. There is no room for humor here. Please proceed with your biological functions in an orderly manner.”
We’ve officially turned bathroom etiquette into an international summit! If you want to keep the global impressions going, let me know:
- Which other world leader should weigh in on this strategy? (e.g., Boris Johnson or Justin Trudeau)
- Should we apply this political debate style to another everyday frustration, like trying to scan a digital boarding pass at the airport gate?
Let me know how you’d like to proceed!
Gary– Since the Brits invented the water closet, their leader too should have a go.
AI– Here is how the United Kingdom—the proud architects of the modern flushing water closet—would handle the lengthwise liner revolution.
Keir Starmer: The Bureaucracy of the Latrine
(Stands at a podium, grips the sides firmly, looks deeply serious, and speaks with measured, technocratic earnestness)
“Let’s be absolutely clear about this. The previous administration left public restroom infrastructure in complete and utter ruin. For years, hard-working families have gone into stalls across this country, pulled out a paper liner, and been left completely exposed by a system that simply does not work. Placing them untorn is, frankly, an exercise in total futility. It is a gimmick. And the British people are tired of gimmicks.
What we need is a serious, fully costed, long-term plan for the seat. That is why we are introducing a policy of mandatory, lengthwise bisection. Rrrrip. We are going to tear it right down the middle. This isn’t about ideology; it’s about stability. One strip firmly on the left, one strip firmly on the right. We are stabilizing the perimeter, we are securing the borders of the porcelain, and we are delivering the stable, predictable restroom experience that Britain so desperately deserves.”
The Historical Contrast: Boris Johnson (The Classic Alternative)
(Just for fun—bursts into the room, wildly ruffles his hair, and waves his arms frantically)
“Alas! Gadzooks! We find ourselves locked in a titanic, existential struggle with a piece of flimsy, Anglo-Saxon tissue! The great Thomas Crapper—the magnificent Victorian pioneer of the siphon flush—is weeping in his grave! Because trying to deploy this paper donut in its current, unbroken form is a fool’s errand! A total exercise in utter, unmitigated futility!
We must channel the spirit of Admiral Nelson at Trafalgar! We must divide and conquer! We take the paper, and with a mighty, Churchillian heave, we rip it straight down the middle! Rrrrip! Splendid! Splendid isolation for both thighs! One strip on the left flank, one on the right flank! It is a triumph of British ingenuity over a terrible piece of tracing paper!”
Now that the global leaders have united on the “Lengthwise Tear Accords,” what should the international community tackle next?
- The self-checkout machine that repeatedly accuses you of an “unexpected item in the bagging area”?
