I was eating a Kit-Kat at the time I read this. Man…it never tasted like that before.
If they are truly her friends, why wouldn’t you at least bring it up sometime and not use any names. Like, we’ve had some problems with our towels…etc…
If all else fails…
go with Toddly’s idea
Next time she’s visiting, and she goes to the bathroom, make an excuse to go in there and check. If there’s crap on the towels, come back out into the room where all the ladies are gathered and in your most bitchy, nasal voice scream:
“Jeezus CHRIST! Who shit all over the towels? I mean God’s Bollocks, it looks like someone shoved a towel up their arse and went fishing! Who the fuck comes over to someone’s house and smears their shit all over the bath linens?”
Then catch yourself, look embarrased, break down in tears, and flee the room.
If you can, recruit a spotter to watch the reactions of the other ladies. Or better yet, videotape them.
Then encode in MPEG format and put it up on the internet for all to see.
I think bughunter’s idea is pure genius and should be done right away.
Before she comes over, put a note on each towel (perhaps shaped like those “sanitized for your protection” wrappers), saying something like “Hey Bertha, don’t wipe your ass with my towel!” Then put all the towels in the closet where guest have no business snooping. Leave a roll of paper towels for the guests to dry their hands with.
Or make a sign with an image of someone wiping their bum with a towel and a red line through it. Hang near towels, problem solved!
This woman has got to be mentally ill. There is no way a “normal” person would do this, ever.
I’m in the “quit hanging out with her and say nothing” camp. Any confrontation, no matter how gentle, is going to mortify this poor woman. I say “poor” because she obviously has SERIOUS problems.
Either that or have one of the women mention to the other group about a problem with their towels etc. and “speculate” on which “family member” might be doing it. That might be enough for the woman to take the hint without losing face.
I wouldn’t care what the “reason” for this is, this behavior is so far out of the realm of what’s acceptable I can’t imagine how any sane person could even consider doing it.
Sure, when I travel, I’ll always ask the maid for plenty of extra towels. I’m not fat or anything; I can reach the areas in question just fine. But I’m a five-star traveler, and will accept nothing less than the very best in terms of sturdiness and comfort for the proverbial self-cleansing.
But the important distinction here is that those towels don’t belong to anyone I know. If I ever found myself in someone’s bathroom with nothing but a hand towel to wipe with, I’d use it, but I’d at least have the decency to throw it in the garbage or toss it out the window or something.
Wiping your ass with my stuff is a deal-breaker if there ever was one. There’s just no excuse for that.
Goodness. I am shocked your MIL let it happen more than once. If someone did that to me, I would scream at them (over the phone; couldn’t bear to face them again) and forbid them to ever come to my house again.
The only RATIONAL reason I can think of for such behavior is that she secretly hates your MIL and is purposely trying to get revenge by ruining her towels…but somehow I doubt that’s the case.
I agree with the reaching problem theory. Maybe she is so embarrassed about her problem that she isn’t thinking clearly about how to deal with it. Yes, she could bring her own towel, but I’m sure her friends would ask questions about why she was carrying it everywhere. Who knows, maybe in some twisted way she thinks it would be more humiliating for people to catch her with the soiled towel than if they discovered it after she was out of the house.
You could try talking to her about finding a more reasonable and discreet way to clean herself. I know there are companies that make reaching tools and portable bidets to help the morbidly obese clean themselves (see http://www.amplestuff.com for example, though I have no personal knowledge of their product quality).
Eew. Think of the poor laundry workers, please. Ever stay at a Six Flags Lodge in New York State, by any chance? God knows I saw plenty of brown stains in the laundry room there…
Or was I just whooshed?
If your Mom-in-law won’t confront her, maybe she should hide ALL of the towels next time?
A sign that simply says:
We don’t dry off with your ass, please don’t wipe with our towels.
No, but after that ringing endorsement, I’ll be sure to look into it.
Dear God, I just thought of something else…
Photog, I’m just playing a hunch here, but I want you to call your mother-in-law right now and tell her to throw out her toothbrush immediately! This is truly a sick individual we’re dealing with here. Who knows what she’s capable of?
I thought about Sedaris the second I read the OP.
Yeesh. It’s one of those situations where you have to say something, but for the life of me I can’t think of how I would ever ask someone “Have you been wiping your ass with my towels?”
There was an article in … Mother Jones I think…, a while ago about fat person empowerment, and how super heavy women (and men assumedly) can’t reach to wipe themselves and need to use “tools” to get at those hard to reach areas. The litte “rasta style” scrubbers with the little sponge “fingers” were cited as a favorite for cleaning under there, but you’re going to have to rinse it in the toilet poo soup unless you’re got a bucket of water handy for rinsing it out, and you have to be careful the scrubber doesn’t accidently make it back to the sink.
I vote for bughunter’s strategy.
Better yet: get that exact message embroidered into all your towels. In 4 languages.
Ye gads. Wiping your ass with a towel. :eek:
And just how big is a person when they’re incapable of wiping their own ass? I seriously can’t understand why some people would let themselves go like that.
[sub](Yeah, yeah, yeah, some people have diseases that cause them to gain weight, blah blah. Indeed, some do.)[/sub]
But maybe there is a mental problem going on here too, as others have stated. I don’t know. I just know that I find the whole scenario quite baffling.
Always meet at Kathy’s house.
What goes on there?
Could have been worse. She could have used the face cloth.
It’s been a good while since I’ve read something on the net that’s honestly floored me.
Thank you for making me feel young and non-jaded again! I especially enjoyed the one-two punch–utterly dazed and seeing looney-tunes-esque circling tweeting birds and stars by the whole guest-towel-wiping thing, then the subtler but no less savage left hook out of nowhere invovled in the people whose towels are being shat upon being afraid to hurt the shitter’s feelings.
Damn. Just…damn.
What’s the “Sadaris” incident you guys keep mentioning? Is there a second shitter?
Is she a close friend? Does she have family that can be consulted? Geez, this chick is waaaay fucking off the beam. I had no idea fat people had trouble reaching the “affected” area. But I can’t picture how a towel would make it easier than regular toilet paper.
I guess you could install a bidet, but…