When I was a kid, my mother always hung our towels out on the line to dry.
A day in the sun left the towels stiff as a 4X4 post, and rough as a wire brush. You had to get them a little bit damp first or a dry towel would peel the skin right off of your body, especially if you were a little bit sunburned.
The inquisition never invented such a sinister torture device.
Those towels sucked!
I say that not just because they were so damn uncomfortable, but also because they were super absorbent – they actually got you dry!
The towels we use today are bigger, brighter, and much more plush than those towels of my youth. Compared to the rough texture of my mother’s towels, they are as smooth as glass and soft as a lover’s touch. After a turn in the clothes dryer with a Bounce fabric-softener sheet, they even smell wonderful.
Today’s towels are almost perfect. They feel great, and they smell good – they do everything a towel should do except get you dry.
They push the water around your skin like a squeegee, but refuse to wick it up. The best you can hope for is moist.
While cooking breakfast this morning, I rinsed my hands. Then after rubbing them with a dish towel for what seemed like hours, I threw the towel on the floor, called it something I can’t repeat, and dried my hands with a paper towel.
Much as I hate to admit it, I’m afraid my mother may have been right.
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