Sunday, November 19, 2017

Can Somebody Get me a Towel?

For some unknown reason, we had run out of clean bath towels in our bathroom. Actually, I do know the reason. All of the clean towels were folded and sitting on the counter in the basement laundry room because there are no longer children in the house that can, “Run down to the basement and get me a stack of clean towels.” So when Tom brought me a towel, I said, “Why are these towels better than our towels?” I know the reason for that too. When one of my sons left for college the first time around, I over-bought him towels to take to the dorm. They are really nice, Ralph Lauren towels from Marshalls. I know I could have just sent him to college with the old crappy towels from his bathroom, but what would the other mothers think? Besides, I never buy new towels. I have towels that were shower gifts from our wedding 25 years ago. They are tattered and have threads hanging off the sides. They’re those threads that are still attached to the towel at two ends and hook on your baby toe when you are trying to dry your feet and legs; almost launching you head first into the bathroom counter. Towels just don’t seem to be a purchase priority. Like sheets, they are expensive, and we already have some even if they are thin and worn. A friend of mine once told me a story of her daughter going to a friend’s for a sleep over. When she came home she told her mom about how much she liked their towels.
            “What’s so great about their towels?” she asked her daughter.
            “They’re absorbent,” was the response.

So I’m not the only one who doesn’t buy towels. Actually, I’m one of the lucky ones. When we built our first house my mother-in-law arrived with stacks of brand new towels and washcloths to color-coordinate with the freshly painted walls. And when we built our current house, I splurged on towels to match our master bathroom, handing down the older towels to the kids for their bathroom. But twelve years later, we have those towels and the ones from our wedding. So when the nest emptied, I put the extra “really nice” towels in what has now become the guest bathroom. When Tom brought me that luxurious towel, I thought to myself, “Why aren’t we using these? We never have guests anyway!” So it took me less than a day to haul the next-to-oldest towels up from the basement and into the guest bathroom while I loaded our bathroom shelf up with fluffy, soft, absorbent towels. Considering that we now have really old, old, partially old, and fairly new towels, you can assume that I will never run out of clean towels in the bathroom again. Unless of course, there is nobody here to bring them up from the laundry room.

Christmas Confession

I have a confession to make. Last month I wrote about decorating for Christmas and said that I “had” decorated after Thanksgiving. The way t...