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Laura on Life

Stupid people need more towels

By Laura Snyder

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[July 07, 2008]  I think about strange things sometimes. Things like: If everyone in the Western Hemisphere jumped up, would everyone in the Eastern Hemisphere bounce? That's something to which I'll probably never know the answer. Getting everyone to simply agree on the time would be a logistics nightmare.

DonutsThere are other thoughts, perhaps, to which one shouldn't know the answer. Things like: How many towels is too many?

When a house has had seven people living in it at one time, it tends to harbor a substantial collection of towels. Most of them look like they should've been relegated to the rag pile long ago. That's because I keep forgetting that towels and bras do not play nice together in the washer and dryer. Bras are particularly aggressive because their little hooks grab on to the tiniest loose thread and yank until the towel looks like it's made of spaghetti noodles.

Still, I save them. I fold them all and place them folded-side-out in my linen closet because … well … I may need all 126 of them one day.

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Well, today was that day. I can tell you now, that no amount of towels is too many for a day like today. Although, I would never have imagined that the use I would have for them had nothing to do with their usual bathroom duties.

In my laundry room I have a utility sink into which my washer drains when it's on the spin cycle. I had some whites that needed to be soaked in bleach water in the sink because whites never stay white in my house.

My mother says I should simply buy dark-colored things so I'd never have to soak them. I think that's silly because if everything I had was dark-colored, they'd still get stained, and then I couldn't soak them in bleach. Maybe people wouldn't see the stains, but I would know, wouldn't I?

I was sitting in my living room listening to my daughter butcher a song on the piano when my 6-year-old came in yelling about a flood downstairs. There are many things this particular child would fib about in order to get out of trouble, but "There's a flood downstairs" is not in his usual repertoire. It didn't fit neatly into his customary MO of "How do I get out of this one?"

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As this data sunk in, my feet began to move faster and faster, down the hall, through the door, down the stairs, then WHAM! Flat on my posterior.

The floor was not only wet, and coincidentally, slippery, but it had become a large wading pool. Laundry baskets were bobbing in the waves that were caused when my rather large backside hit the water. Toys were floating in careless abandon around my feet. And the washer was merrily a-pumping more water into the utility sink that was filled to capacity because I had plugged it up to soak my whites.

I slipped and dripped over to the machine and punched it off just as it was wringing the last bit of water from the clothes in the spin cycle. I unplugged the sink. Then I looked at the carnage for which I had only myself to blame.

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I am now convinced that there is such a thing as a walking, talking brain-dead person. That person would be me.

What was I thinking? How would I get all that water off the floor with no drains?

Now I knew the reason I had saved all those threadbare, ripped and stained towels! This was it! I raced to get an armful and threw them down on the floor and ran to get more. By this time, my husband and children had joined the fray. We'd sop up a dozen towels, then toss them into the washer for a spin cycle while we sopped up water with more towels. Never was I so happy to have so many towels.

In fact, the next time there's a sale at Wal-Mart, I'm going to buy a couple of dozen more. When there are brain-dead people in the house, there's no such thing as too many towels.

[By LAURA SNYDER]

You can reach the writer at lsnyder@lauraonlife.com Or visit www.lauraonlife.com for more columns and info about her books.

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