Kitchen Towels

I recommend that anyone that is living on their own, which I suppose means all of us, go out and buy some decent kitchen towels and rags. Stop buying rolls of paper towels every couple of weeks, and move what you have down into the basement to sit alongside your cleaners and buckets. Paper towels suck, and rags are here to rescue you.

Before I go on, I’ll add that I was going to start by saying this post might be coming out of left field. But then I was reminded that this blog has 3 prior posts…The field hasn’t been established yet. So buckle in.

Continuing the topic on hand…

I have thought about the utility of rags for a long time. I suppose it was when I first got proper rags in the house. My wife ordered something that looks a lot like these:

These were a game changer. Got about 40 of them, maybe. Paper towels somehow both suck up so much water that they are useless without a handful, but you still have water on the floor? Not a problem with these bad boys. They have the superior absorption that paper towel companies have long tried to get you to believe they have. Paper towel marketing is the classic story: tell you that they solve a problem as old as time, and they have the solution, while completely ignore that spills have long been solved.

You can wipe water, grease, dog puke, whatever. Just throw it in the wash when you are done. “Oh no, I’ve got enough laundry to do and who is going to play with little Sally?” you might say. Listen, bub, even little Sally can fold these suckers, lickety split. It’s one fold, right down the middle. This is easy stuff.

Little Bobby have a mess on his face? Hates getting his face wiped? No problem, drop a little water on these and luxuriate his soft baby cheeks in these cotton towels. No more chocolate face, and he’s none the wiser. Why not take that cloth over to the kitchen and give the stove a good wipe, too.

What’s next? That’s right, throw that puppy right into the laundry basket. Beats dropping it in the trash can and spending the night wondering how many paper towels are headed to the landfill every single day. If landfills were separated by item, how big would the paper towel landfill be? We got our rags at least 4 years ago. Still white!

You can even get these things in non-white colors, if you have decor to match or want to coordinate colors for certain purposes. With the birth of our toddler a few years ago we got another set of maybe 50 for diaper changes. Now she continues to use them in her post-diaper life. Combined with a handheld bidet/sprayer, it’s :chef kiss:. Run through the wash to preserve those pastel purples, yellows, and grays (pastel gray?).

And I’ll be honest, up front, come clean: I’ve still got paper towels. I buy a single roll about every other month. Listen, though, I’ve got a cat that occasionally pees on stuff. That is truly foul, and I don’t love the idea of running that through the wash. I don’t doubt it would work. But I’ve got this mental barrier about it. But overall, a handful of paper towel rolls per year? Sure. Maybe in the new year we’ll drop them entirely.

The new year…big dreams.