Something is going on in this household that is leaving me intrigued yet intensely irritated. I want to see if any of my readers can relate to my great source of annoyance and mystery.
It’s the great Mystery of the Towels. More precisely, The Mystery of the Towels That Appear in Bizarre Places and Don’t get Picked Up.
I could give this mystery and an even longer name. Something like: The Mystery of the Towels That Appear in Bizarre Places and Don’t get Picked Up by Anyone Else But Me. In fact, it’s very similar to another domestic issue: That of socks being left on the floor and mysteriously being picked up and placed in the washing basket.
There is no shortage of towels in this house. If anything, we have far too many but I regularly find myself stepping out of the shower and having to go on a search and rescue mission to find a towel.
When I do find one, it is often damp and been left in the strangest place. It can be the newel post at the bottom of the stairs, underneath a chair in the kitchen, lying unloved on living room floor or just about anywhere but the bathroom.
Yes, I could check if there was a towel in the bathroom before I had a shower. That may be a sensible thing to do. If, however, I have placed several towels in the bathroom just an hour before I shower I like to think that at least one of the towels will still be in there 60 minutes later.
I have learned the hard way that this is an incredibly naïve way to think of towel availability in this house. Once my family have been in the bathroom, well, those towels just vanish and that’s when I have to go all military and hunt one down for my own use.
In fact, I have something of a post-school run ritual. Once I’m back from the school run I often go around the house and pick up all the towels I can find.
It’s the towels I find in the living room that leave me most confused. The family get washed and dressed upstairs so how do they magically appear in a room that’s downstairs? have no idea what they’re doing in there.
As the home maker, it is, apparently, my responsibility to go on daily Search and Rescue missions for damp towels. Wherever wet, used towels are hidden, wherever they are festering, my wife and children expect me to hunt them down and hang them up.
I kind-of expect this from Izzy. She’s five-years-old. She knows no better. Helen, at the age of eight, well I’d like to think she could pick up the occasional towel. As for Mrs Adams, just don’t get me started. Let’s just say that after a heated discussion, wet towels are no longer found on our bed. I do, however, frequently find them on the floor.
Tell me, does this sound familiar to you? Are you forever picking wet towels up off the floor? Those of you with teenagers, have I got worse to come or is this the worst stage for dealing with the Mystery of the Towels That Appear in Bizarre Places?
6 thoughts on “My daily search and rescue mission for dry, clean towels”
Towels are always an issue in my household! In the event that I have to reuse my towel from the previous day (due to no clean towels), I usually find that it’s been used by my partner that day! Leaving me with none! I have similar issues with mugs! They get left in the most ridiculous of places!
Oh, yeah, Best not mention mugs. If anything, I’m the culprit for leaving mugs lying around! Delighted to hear I am not the only person who struggles to find towels. Maybe we should gang together and hide them, then others would realise how much work we put into clearing towels away.
Haha! Have you got cctv in my home and I don’t know this is our house, and yes the worst culprit is my wife. Wet towels left everywhere, are our wives related. Great read mate made me really laugh. Oh yes! the outfit and make-up it suits you John. Haha! Now we know what you get up to while the kids are in school.
As it happens Nigel, the kids were at home when I took that photo! Anyway, I guess it is possible our wives are related. Towel dropping could be in their DNA.
Yep, I can relate to this. I’m a bit weird in that I like a particular bath towel and have my own gym towels. However, the regularity with which I spend an extraordinary amount of time hunting them down, only to find they’ve been used for drying the bathroom floor, mopping up spilt milk etc is ridiculous haha. I might have to put them under lock and key.
Question is, have you ever tried to use one of these towels after it has been used to clean up some kind of spillage? That could be quite a disgusting experience!