I just came off of three weeks of visiting relatives. Get this:
My Mom, sister, grandfather and cousin came in on a Sunday. Grandfather and cousin left the next Saturday. Father came in Monday. All left on the next Saturday. Mother-in-law and aunt-in-law came in the next Tuesday and left the next Saturday.
It’s been a nightmare. I think I’ve put 1000 miles on my car, been to SF 4 times and Monterey twice.
:sigh:
Anyway, while my MIL was here she wanted new towels in the guest bathroom every day. This meant five new sets of towels (10 really since her sister was sharing the bathroom), hand towels and washcloths in a four night stay. This pissed me off to no end.
Meanwhile, my mother only wanted new towels every week. I changed them on her one extra time and she yelled at me that she was clean when she used them, so they weren’t really dirty. This meant six new sets (for two people) in the same bathroom in 2 weeks.
Now I tend to be between the two, using a bath towel maybe three times before I chuck it in the laundry and get a new one.
Is this weird? Is my mom weird? Is my MIL overly demanding? Was I just worn out from all the visitors and being testy? (don’t answer that one!)
Here’s another one…my Mom stripped the sheets off the beds she and the family used and left them folded on a dresser. She made the bed so it looked fine, except the dirty sheets were off. My Aunt-in-law did the same thing yet the MIL did not. I usually do it too, only because my mom taught me to.
Is this weird? Do any of you do this as guests?
Sue - Happy to be able to walk around naked again.
Well Sue, what I want to know is, why you went to Monterey without telling me :). Nah, i wouldnt have bothered you and your family. But, it’s nice knowing you took them down my way, just for a visit.
How in the Hell did three very nice little Nyms come from such a bunch of OCD cretins? What in blue blazes are you going to do with all of those towels? Might as well build a stream room…
Although, if you ever have the barbecue party we’ve talked about, you’ll really need 'em.
Well I only have one towel of any sort to use, and it gets washed about once every two weeks. I cannot understand why anybody would want a new towel, much less a new set of towels, every day. That’s ridiculous. If someone visiting my family demanded that, we just wouldn’t have enough towels.
FWIW, I use a new towel every day, so does the SO. I’ve never been in a position where I was asked to reuse a towel when visiting, and any guests I’ve ever had have used a new towel each day.
That said, I can see the point about being clean when the towel is used, and find it unfortunate that you had to buy so many extra towels to accomodate a guest. Still, I guess you can put them away for her next visit
The bed thing - I never know what to do. If I’m staying at the house of a close friend, I’ll just roughly make the bed before I leave. If I’m staying at the house of a distant relative, or anyone I’m not ultra-comfortable with, I’ll strip the bed, fold all the linen and leave it all sitting on the end of the bed.
[hijack] Worst people I used to stay with kept their guest blankets in the hallway cupboard, and their guests were to sleep on the fold-down sofa. At night, just before they went to bed they’d say “Blankets are in the hall cupboard”, and they’d go to bed, leaving their guest/s to work out how to operate the couch, find the linen, etc on their own. In the morning, the hostess would say “Just put them back in the cupboard”. The sheets were never, ever, ever washed between guests. When the guests left, the sheets went back in the cupboard unwashed, until they were needed again. My mother would have died!!
Of course, this was the same house where you would find dirty, wadded up, disposible diapers sitting around the house. She’d leave the dirty diaper where ever she happened to be when she changed it. They were usually on the lounge room floor or coffee table, but I’ve seen them on the kitchen benches and dining table too.
[/hijack] (Sorry bout that!!)
When my inlaws come to visit, they share a towel!! SHEESH!! Now, I don’t have nice color-coordinated sets of bath linens - much of what we use in the odds and ends that my grandmother had bought over the years coupled with the assorted “sets” I’ve accumulated over 17 years, minus the ones that have become rags. Regardless, I have plenty of towels.
We put out towels for each of them, plus we’ve shown them where we keep the rest, in case they want more. When they leave, there’s one damp towel, and maybe a washcloth. This is actually harder on me because I have to accumulate enough towels to wash a load - I don’t like to mix towels with other things because of the drying time - there is logic there, trust me!
My mom used to wash towels every day, but I prefer to go 3 days or so per towel - no sense in running up my electric bill or wearing the towels out sooner than necessary. I’m not sure what MIL does - we’ve never visited for more than 3 nights, so we didn’t need more than a towel each.
As for sheets - I always ask what I should do with them at the end of a visit, and I stack blankets/spreads/pillows on the unmade bed. I’m fine with my guests doing that or just leaving the bed unmade as is. No biggie either way.
:eek: “Excuse me, where’s the nearest hotel?”
I have no problem with using a towel for a week. Like Sue’s mom says, I’m clean when I use it.
My former father-in-law would never use a towel twice. When I pointed out that he was clean when he used it, he looked at me like I was crazy, and said, “The first thing I dry is my face. The last thing I dry is my ass. I don’t feel like keeping track of what part of the towel I used for the next time.”
Sue! Your alive! Oh, thank all that is great and holy on this green earth! I thought you’d been lost, having been rend asunder and tossed into the eternal abyss of damnation and, um … , oh sorry, I lost my train of thought.
Welcome back.
And for what it’s worth, I didn’t even know there was a plural form for the word “towel”.
Yeesh. I think I would have told him that there are certain places that towels don’t easily reach, and there are better ways to dry them. Q-tips work for ears, and TP does fine for the parts of the ass that it’s difficult (not to mention undesirable) to wipe with a towel. :rolleyes:
Suprisingly, I DO have that many towels (same color even) so it wasn’t a huge deal. It just upset me that she requested it, like I was supposed to come in like a hotel maid and change her towels every day.
I suppose I should have pointed out the linen closet and told her to go for it like FairyChatMom suggested.
Next time. [sub]We really need an evil grin smiley[/sub]
I can’t believe this bunch made it through an entire thread on towels without one joke in the HHGTTG genre - “That Sue’s a gal who really knows where her towels are”, etc. C’mon people! This is supposed to be Geek Central here!
certainly wouldn’t make ME angry. It would be kind of like, “make yourself at home, there are towels in the closet when you need them.” If someone gets offened by that they can stay elsewhere.
Wow, I’m with Jack on this one. Your house sounds like towel heaven! I’m a sucker for fluffy new towels, but alas, being a poor starving geek, I make do with my cheapo towels I stole from my parents before moving out.
I can’t imagine demanding a new towel every day if I was staying at someone’s house! Maybe I should try this with Crack’dOff, see if he’ll provide me with maid services.
[sub]Not that kind of maid services, you pervs![/sub]
