The Thorny Towel Issue

So, let's you and I talk about bathrooms for a change. Actually, let's talk about things pertaining to bathrooms not for a change but rather for the third (or is that the turd?) consecutive day. So help me, I cannot stop. In fact, you might say that I'm flushed with exuberance over the topic.

Today, it is the topic of towels that arrests my attention. Yes, I want to know all about the relationship between you and your towels. Stop smirking; this is a most solemn matter that the brave amongst you must find the courage to advance to the forefront of blog-dumb's conscience and consciousness.

As I perceive it , just as there are different opinions about baths and showers, and just as there are different opinions about morning versus evening ablutions, so, too, there exists a great dichotomy over the proper number of times that a towel may be used before it is required to be laundered. I perceive that there exist two, fundamentally discrepant schools of thought:

• (i) that a towel may be used only once, at least for any major usage before being discarded into the laundry hamper to await purification;


• (ii) that several uses — perhaps two to four — are perfectly acceptable.

I belong to the latter camp. My reasoning is straightforward. I use a towel to absorb clean water from a clean body. This does not dirty the towel per se but merely requires that the towel be freshened-up after several such uses. As far as I can determine, the one-time-users seem to regard the issue thusly: "Well, you just never know where the towel has been."

That simply boggles my brain. Is clean not clean? Even when you dry your most dark and deeply private nether regions, are they not clean? Have you not just washed thoroughly? Have you not subsequently rinsed? Wherever the spot on your body, whether it's a place that receives its fair share of sunlight or not, is it not just plain, clear, wholesomely pure water that the towel is absorbing? We simply use the towel to dry our already clean selves, long after our sweat and grime has been washed down the drain.

Please don't think me completely irresponsible in this regard, for I am quite convinced that towels get musty after several uses. Of course, they require freshening, and, by golly, I'm all for it. I'm not advocating endless weeks and months of steady use for goodness sakes, but let's be reasonable about this.

I think we should talk about toilet paper next. What?! Okay, I hear you. End of topic.