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.
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