T - 5: Never Throwing in the Towel

There are two very old blue towels in the bathroom. They sit among a dozen or so newer, fluffier, bigger towels. And if those aren't enough there are many, many more in the linen closet, most of which have never been used.

Yet it is the old blue towels to which I return every morning. They are not the best towels, but they are my towels. I like using them, even though they are in such a state that it would never occur to me to let a guest use them.

The one in the picture has a huge hole in it. Actually, it's almost perfectly rectangular, and the lines of the tear are quite straight. It's as if someone at one point brought scissors to the bathroom and neatly excised a chunk of my towel.

That, of course, has not stopped me from using the towel. If anything, it has made me even more committed to using it, knowing that at some point that rectangular gap may widen, or even tear apart the whole towel. And that will be the end of it, because as much as I love that towel, I will not love it when it is the size of a dishtowel. I have very few requirements in this area, but one is an easy two-handed buff of my wide, wet butt.

Not having the blue towels would be distressing, though. It would be like sitting in a different chair at the table or the wrong spot of the couch in the living room. It would be nearly as difficult as trying to fall asleep on the wrong side of the bed.

I don't think of myself as a creature of habit, but maybe that's one more time I am kidding myself. I don't really know why I feel so strongly that it's the old blue towels or no towels. It may go back to my childhood when I couldn't get to sleep without my blanket, not the one you pull over your shoulders, but the little one I had had since I was an infant. The one I called "my banky" long after I had stopped baby talk.

I'm not sure how old I was when my parents finally broke me of that habit, but I was old enough that I can still remember when I needed that blanket in my hand as I went to bed. I will have to ask my mother how she broke me of the habit. It would be spooky to find out she cut a rectangular hole in it.