I think I’m going to put bath towels on my Christmas list.
When you can’t tell the dog towels from the car-washing towels from the “good” towels, it’s time for new ones. For some reason, my husband and I don’t buy towels. We got quite a few bath towels as wedding presents 29 years ago, and we’ve bought just a few over the years — but not many. In case you haven’t noticed, good towels are expensive.
I have the towels I hang out just to look good, and I have purchased matching hand towels when I’ve changed colors in my bathroom.
We have several beach towels. The three oldest ones — including one my husband got almost 40 years ago as a high school graduation gift — have been relegated to cat towels. That means I spread them on one end of my red couch to keep the
orange cat hair off it, and I yank the towel off the couch when company comes. Which is rarely.
We have some rattier towels that we put in the crate our dog sleeps in at night, but they really aren’t in any worse shape than the rest of the bunch. I’ve been cutting the strings off our favorite ones.
My husband and I will take an occasional vacation or go out to eat steak, but buying bath towels seems like an extravagant expense.
Sometimes I look at towels in catalogs or online. I pore over the different kinds and read the descriptions — made of bamboo and super-
absorbent, Egyptian cotton or the finest loops. The options are endless.
I’ve been disappointed before. I have a few that felt good in the store, but when they were washed a few times, they could double as sandpaper.
It’s ridiculous, really.
One day my husband came out, fully dressed, “wearing” a bath towel by putting his arms through the holes in the corners. I insisted that he put it in the dog-towel pile.
It got so bad that I raided our younger son’s storage containers that he brought home before he moved to Kentucky.
He had a very nice, extra-long towel. It was like new. I realized after using it, though, that it’s made for somebody 6-6 because it drags the shower floor and gets wet. It’s way too long to wrap around my wet hair, too, so back it went into my son’s box.
I still have a Ninja Turtle towel and washcloth that I bought for our older son, now 27.
My mother still uses a Sesame Street towel for her grandchildren that was my 46-year-old brother’s as a child.
I wonder if any store has a contest for oldest towel, like I’ve seen for oldest mattress. I have a Casper the Friendly Ghost towel from my childhood that came in a box of detergent that my Nano bought. Another towel has a lion on it.
Those giveaways have lasted longer than anything I’ve bought in the past two decades.
My mother still has some nice ones.
I’ll ask her to leave them to me in the will.
I could just wait and ask for some for our 30th wedding anniversary next year. Those should do us for the rest of our lives.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.