Save The Planet - Paper Towels

When I was a kid, I thought a paper towel was worth more than its weight in gold. This slice of soft paper was something that sat up upon the shelf, but was never to be touched. Have a spill? Use a rag to wipe it up. Need to wipe your face? Don’t you know that is what cloth towels are for? My mother was a paper towel tyrant, and today, we have a good laugh about it. Back then, however, she was dead serious about it, as you just don’t waste paper towels.

I could never figure out what she was saving her paper towels for, and today she says she has no idea why she was so tough about it. Apparently, she had a fondness for the paper towel that even she cannot explain. I think perhaps it had a lot to do with the way she was raised, and to use a paper towel was to waste a paper towel. She was the only one who could deem it OK to use one, and the rest of us had to find other ways to clean up.

As funny as it was then, I find that today I go through paper towels like a mad woman. I use them for everything and anything. I think it is cheaper to use them then to dirty piles of hand towels wiping up things that I find on the floor. I have two cats and a child under five, so you might say I find a lot of things on the floor, some of which I cannot identify. When you don’t know what something is, it is far safer to wipe it up with a paper towel than to put it on something you have to put in your washing machine. It’s best to make a clean break when dealing with mystery messes, don’t you think?

I allow my daughter to use a paper towel whenever she wants. Perhaps in a small way I am rebelling against my mom. It wasn’t really a huge problem that she would never let me use one, because it was more funny than it was anything else. I just find that I use them more than most people, and perhaps my mom is the reason why. When I go to her house and my daughter spills something I hand my mom a paper towel and we both have a good laugh as she wipes it up.