I figured something out today. I have too many towels.
Yes, that’s right. For every load of laundry I do, there are four or five towels which must be added in. (And I do a whole lot of laundry. You have no idea.) Then, about double that amount comes out of the dryer, half of which end up on the floors of bathrooms, at the bottom of laundry hampers, stuffed under beds, and wadded behind toilets. The person who did this is called “Not Me.”
“Not Me” is quite the culprit in my house. This character spills random liquids in the refrigerator, drops gum in the carpet, and leaves these annoying wet towels on the bathroom floors. In a house with seven children, “Not Me” has his run of the place. And I’ve about had it with this intruder. Something must be done immediately.
So while my children have been spending this vacation week with their other parents, I went on a towel-finding mission. This requires patience, sacrifice, and some trickery. You never know where “Not Me” might hide a towel. No place is too obscure or bizarre. You must get down on hands and knees, sometimes reaching into mysterious black holes, or sensing them first by odor. Tracking towels is a science. Already, the pile of recovered towels is quite monstrous. Observing this made me realize something that I hadn’t before: There are just too many towels in this house with too few owners. “Not Me” is the only one who ever takes any credit.
After eliminating (or should I say, hiding) the “Not Me” towels I did something which you might consider peculiar. I bought MORE towels. Today. I know; it was a senseless act. But I bought seven towels of different colors. Seven different shades. And I wrote a name in permanent ink on each towel. Pretty hard to blame “Not Me” when your towel—with your name on it—is lying in a heap for the world to see. This is my strategy: one towel, one owner. And a new accountability for towel placement is born. Now a wet towel left on the floor means you won’t have a dry one for your next shower. Isn’t it brutal? But sometimes mothers must take drastic measures.
Although I’m a bit giddy at my own ingenuity, I’m also realistic. There are probably holes in my plan of which I’ve yet to discover. I can already make predictions. Now it’ll be “HEY! Who used MY towel and dropped it on the floor? MOOoooom!” And of course, “Not Me” is the likely suspect. Ugh.
Still, it’s never good to dismiss an idea without giving it a shot. So we’ll see what happens.
I’ll wrap up (fold up?) this blog for now and let you get back to your laundry. Besides, “Not Me” and I are about to sneak some fudge from the refrigerator.
Kristyn Crow is the author of this blog. Visit her website by clicking here. Some links on this blog may have been generated by outside sources are not necessarily endorsed by Kristyn Crow.
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