Fancy Cloth Napkins

I've created a monster just by wanting to use cloth napkins in my home.

Way back when I first started out and only had two pair of work shoes, used toilet paper to blow my nose and drank day-old coffee, I still wanted to use cloth napkins. The tables looked so elegant in the magazines. And magazines were all I had for inspiration because HGTV hadn't been invented yet. Much to my disappointment, the cloth napkins in the tabletop department cost nearly five dollars each. And if they were going to be used for multiple meals on a daily basis, I'd need more than two. The price of my vision was slowly adding up. What if we had company?

One day I was in a kitchen store (danger, danger) and I saw a stack of cloth dish towels on sale. They even had a retro pattern that matched our dishes. I scooped up six for the price of two cloth napkins and became the savvy hostess with the large napkins that covered your lap and then some. I even went back and bought three more in a complementing pattern, cut them in half and made placemats. No one who came to dinner had ever seen such table settings. I could fold the napkins several ways or fan them out in wine glasses. And when we weren't having company, we still had enough napkins for ourselves.

As time went on and tastes changed, I would retire the more senior "napkins" to the dish towel drawer and replace them with newer color choices. I still used the dish towel idea for our napkins. After awhile, I had had three sets of six to get us through the year. My napkins took up two kitchen drawers. The dish towel drawer was across the room.

Everything changed with the birth of our son. He was all in on the concept of cloth napkins for everyone. But he could not stop to wonder which dish towel was a napkin and which one was a dish towel even though they were separately located.  For years I would walk into a room and groan that he was using a new dish towel as a napkin and remind him what the napkin color palette entailed. He also only liked to use whatever cloth item only once, so the laundry was always full of dish towels. Oh, and if it's function was a napkin it was folded one way. If it's function was a dish towel, it was folded another way. That was only obvious to me, not to the men in the house.

Now they both just grab one of the dish towels hanging by the sink and drape their laps. They leave it anywhere that works - a chair, the table, the cutting board or a counter. Since I don't really know what it was used for since it wasn't hanging up or folded, it goes in the wash. So nowadays, I look for sales on dish towels and have several dozen because of the laundry factor. When I am at someone's home, helping with the dishes, I marvel how they can get by with two dish towels. The men in my house remain as confused as ever, and I rest knowing that if I would someday get through all that laundry, I'd find, sort and appropriately fold all of my cloth inventory. Until then, I just chuckle knowing this conundrum was created solely by me and my desire to have a stylish place setting.

Mom on Strike

 

I love to tell this true story.

There was a mom of two kids, ten years apart in age. She was also a wife and worked full-time and was taking graduate classes. Her full time job included a lot of  "on call" activities that could not be predicted. In addition to these roles,  she spent a minimum of 3 hours each day driving her kids to and from school in stop and go traffic. We all know that is simply a cue to pull your hair out, especially with the youngest one kicking at the back of the driver's seat and there is nothing you can do about it right then except take a deep breath.

Well this mom was making sure there was food in the refrigerator and on the table, doing the laundry and leading the call to arms regarding basic housekeeping. She was even beginning to experiment with recipes besides casseroles.

Day after day she tried her best to provide her family with clean surroundings, fresh food and guidance while supporting their diverse needs. One day, she had had enough of the lack of help and appreciation from them. She was tired of wiping down the kitchen counter again after someone else when she always left things clean.

"I'm done," she told her family. "I am going on strike. I don't feel that you guys appreciate what I do for you so from now on, I'm not going to do anything. Have at it." At first the eldest and the husband thought she was just on a mini rant and soon she'd be back. She just had to be kidding.

This mom kept her word. She made sure that the youngest was fed and his laundry done, but that was it.  She ate what she wanted, when she wanted and retreated at night to study or watch a decorating show. She was pleasant when she encountered her family members, but she did nothing for them. She didn't do anything against them either. She let go of her mental picture of how tidy things needed to be and even left her own dishes in the sink at times.

The strike lasted 6 months.

That mom was me. After a season, I didn't need to stay on strike. My family had learned what I did for them and I had relaxed from the stress of being my own wife. They learned to appreciate me and I learned I had been doing too much. I did not regret the decisions to start or end the strike. It had been worth it.

Fast forward a dozen years. Everyone pitches in now. Any one of us can flip a load of laundry or put the dishes away. Any one of us can take the full can of trash out without being prompted. And we all say thank you to who ever made dinner or cooked the eggs. And sometimes, just because, we leave the dishes in the sink overnight. Why not? It won't hurt anyone.