Posted by
William D. Dannenmaier on Friday, April 22, 2011 8:12:54 PM
I suppose that in every marriage there is something one person does that their partner wonders “why?” For years I have wondered why my bride insists on purchasing so many new bath towels. We have so many towels that there is no longer room in the closets for clean towels, but Sheila has continued buying. She began with green towels, switched to red towels, then went to larger green towels and now some large white ones with colorful stripes. We gave towels to Megaera when she married. We gave towels to Stephen when he moved to Springfield. We had towels in the cars and covering the chairs. Still, when all were clean, the closets were loaded with bath towels: normal sized green bath towels, red bath towels, large green towels and large white towels. We even had towels stacked on top of the clean rags.
I have spent years wondering about this “new towel” fetish. But, finally, I have discovered the reason. First, however, some background.
Since my retirement, I have done most of the washing. It started as something to do on Sundays during football game commercials. I would put a load in at the start of the game, up-date soap or softener requirements during commercials, transfer clean wet clothing to the dryer during long breaks, and fold and put away at half time. By the time the last game was finished on Sunday, so was the wash.
This did not, of course, include Stephen’s, Andrew’s and Megaera’s dirty clothing, which they kept concealed in their rooms until desperation forced them to bring armloads down for emergency washings. But, let’s turn away from children’s abilities to hide dirty clothing and lose socks in their wanderings through the house and return to my talented washing.
I did a great job of washing. Better than Sheila, at least Sheila encouraged me to think so. Whites were always separated and had a first, hot, washing with Clorox, and then a second washing in warm water sans Clorox - Sheila claimed she could still smell the Clorox if I didn’t do a second washing. Dark clothing simply had a warm water washing and, if the rinse water was dirtier than I liked, a second washing and rinsing. My other specialty included softeners. Commercial softeners, as least the ones we use, have a tendency to prevent water from penetrating cloth, thus I always doubled or tripled the usual amount of softener when I washed jackets. Similarly, because I wish to be dry after using a bath towel, I never put softener in with a load of bath towels. It makes sense. Towels loaded with softener repel water. Thus to be truly dry following a shower and “drying” with one of those “softener towels” nudity and a stiff breeze are required as you wander about to become truly dry. This, I might note, is not bad in the summer, but I find it undesirable in wintry weather or as children grow older besides which it tends to surprise any visitors in the house. On the other hand, towels sans softener may scratch a tiny bit, but leave a body nice and dry.
Well, to leap seventeen years to the present, the other day I had a load of towels in the washer that I completely forgot. As a consequence, Sheila finished washing and drying using a softener in the process. After she had folded and put them away she came in to me and said, “There’s nothing wrong with these towels!”
Finally an explanation! Finally the truth! Drying with what she now claims were my “scratchy” towels, she would decide that the cheap things were coming apart and, when she thought of it on a shopping trip, would buy some new ones. They didn’t scratch. But then, as I washed, the darned things, in her opinion, began falling apart – getting scratchy. and new ones were required. The only reason the white ones have lasted longer is because she was so picky about the Clorox, that I let her wash them.
So this is why she bought so many towels and we still have so many. If anyone desperately needs a towel, they might drop by. Come to think of it, maybe the next time Joyce or some other friend stops in I could slip a few in their car while they are ignoring me and talking to Sheila.