How many towels do you need?

Remember being so excited about towels? Me neither.

​Let's step into the bathroom for a minute. Or if you're really lucky and have a linen closet, head thither. Hopefully, every towel you own is in one of these two places — unless they're in the wash — because if you have towels anywhere else, we'll need to figure out why and that just might turn into a whole new kettle of fish. See: "Seriously? You're KEEPING THAT?" or "So what? The money's already SPENT."

Actually, step away from the towels for a minute because first we need to do some heavy soul searching because if we goof up on this you may not have a clean towel after your next shower and will be forced to pull a dirty one from the laundry or use a pillowcase or wool blanket or a sock or something equally not absorbent. Although actually, the wool blanket might work. 

1. How many people are in your household?
Generally speaking, think three towels per person: one being used, one waiting to be used, and one hanging out in the laundry. But your number will depend on your answers to questions #2 and #3 below because nothing is easy, especially soul-searching.

2. How often do you need a new towel?
Your call here. I'm going to stick my neck out even though I can already hear the cries of disgust and say that we use the same towel for about a week because (A.) we hang them up so they dry quickly and (B.) we're (mostly) clean after showering. This is a no-judging zone. 

3. How often do you do laundry?
I do laundry about once every two weeks because it's just the two of us. That's 14 pairs of underwear if you're counting and I have no problem with that number whatsoever. But really, I'll do towels whenever I have a full load. I'm flexible like that.

Now starts the crazy hard work and it involves math. If x people need a clean towel every x days, and you do laundry every x days, how fast is the train going? But really, you don't need math if you stick to the three towels per person and do laundry once a week. However, if you want a clean towel every day because yuck! then the math, my friend, (and the laundry) is all on you.

4. How many guests do you typically have at one time and for how long? 
Think two towels per guest per week because sometimes said guests don't hang up their towels even after you specifically point out the shiny towel racks you hung just that purpose and sometimes said guests really were raised in a barn. Not naming names here. 

Whew. Take a break. Have a nice cup of tea or a stiff gin & tonic. Then choose the exact number of towels you decided on and put them as close to the bathroom as your home layout allows — in the bathroom is best — then bag up the remainder to (A). Cut up for rags (Unless you already have enough rags and if so please I beg you don't add more rags as we'll just have to go through them later.) (B.) Donate to Goodwill or someplace/someone else. If you're going to donate, go put those towels in your car right now. Then, after all that hard thinking and soul-searching work, you may just need a shower. 

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