Stuff we have and use [and do...]

December 28, 2018

Friday Funny 12-28/18 (Towel Rules)

A good dish towel, I don't like doing dishes, but we don't have a house elf.

Towels, and rags, they have their places on Denali Rose, and please don't confuse the two.

I recently took part in a discussion on the Women Who Sail forum, about using different towels for different jobs, and how the male in the partnership couldn't figure out why. For me, the funniest part of the discussion, was finding out how many women do this with towels, and that no one knew anyone else did. We had a good (online), laugh together.

The gal that started the discussion, had posted an article on WWS, that her partner, Robert had written about the use of towels, and rags on their boat. The article came from their Facebook boat page, S/V Simplify, "The Rag Rules".   Erin gave me permission to reuse, and copy here, they're in italics.  I'll use excerpts, but I won't paste the whole article, you can go to their page, and read the full article, it's funny.

i. Wash towels (hangs at the sink)....Used to dry dishes.
ii Hand towels (hangs near the sink)....Used to dry hands.

Some people may find this silly, but I've always done it this way. I don't want to dry my dishes with the hand towel. I find that the hand towel sometimes isn't as clean, perhaps it gets used in other ways?

Conveniently next to the galley sink.

One of the first things I did when we moved onboard Denali Rose, was to install these easy towel grabbers, and label them. There's no confusion as to which is which, and they're even color coded. It's part of the "welcome onboard" speech we give to guests, "silver towels, here at the galley, and in both heads are for hands, the bronze towels are for dishes."

Pay no attention to the dirty dishes in the sink below, I haven't done them yet this morning.

iv. Shower towels... these towels are the journeyman towels of the boat... they get used every day... but like cats, they lay around most of the day.

Last year for my birthday, Bill bought turkish towels from Marmara Imports. He got two large ones with the terry lining on one side. We normally don't use cotton, but we made an exception for these. I cut them in half, hemmed them, and put a different distinctive hangtag on each one. This is so everyone can tell which towel is theirs. By the way, our towels don't lay around as in Robert's post, ours are hanging in the shower stall with the convenient towel grabbers. (Unlike the cats, who ARE laying around most of the day.)
(Edit: S/V Simplify towels aren't laying around either, they're hung up as well.)



I know my face towel looks a bit dingy, it's not, it's bright white, the lighting is wonky.

There are extra towel hangers in the enclosure for when guests are onboard. The towel to the right is for my hair and face only. Don't ever use my face towel for anything else, I want it to be ultra clean when I dry my face! 

vii. Bathroom towelette, again a specialized disposable store bought rag that is gentle, (affectionately called "baby wipes", and has many uses from b*tt whip to face cleaning, (separate towels!)

Did you catch the b*tt whip reference...LOL... he probably meant wipe, but it's funny this way.


Use those b*tt whips for whatever you need, just don't reuse them, throw them away when you're done! (NOT in the toilet, throw away into the trash can, another rule: NO paper in the toilet.)


ix. Work towels...now these are retired towels from the above classes... they generally have holes in them, and may have a big magic marker "X". When SHMBO marks an "X" on something, I am sure it has something to do with me, and my cognitive skills, and I stare at the "X" carefully before I use it.


(SHMBO - She Who Must Be Obeyed, it comes from a BBC program called, "Rumpole of the Bailey". The main character referred to his wife that way, and we never did find out her name.)

We do have work towels onboard, they are the blue ones, I never thought about putting an X on anything, great idea, but maybe the color code is sufficient.

Purple towels, and blue towels.

The purple towels are exclusively for windows, and the very expensive plastic-glass/strataglass in the dodger and bimini, the enclosure around the outside cockpit, and helm. Again, never use them for anything else. The windows in the pilothouse have a special coating, and using water with the microfiber works the best. I take extra care of the strataglass, it gets rinsed often with clean water, and protected from UV using a special cleaner, and polish at least twice a year. 

The silver, bronze, and purple towels are microfiber, dry quickly, and absorb water even when they are wet. I get them from the "FlyLady" website. 

Is this all too much OCD? Would I know it, if it was? 

Though, woe to anyone who uses the wrong towel!

Okay, if you're done with towels, the reward for hanging in here, pictures of the cats laying around.

Elsie, and Gus rarely sleep this close together.

Gus has taken over the window shelf.

Elsie finds that the main sheet is a good place to cradle her chin.

We're so glad we have these seats for us to sit in, except when a cat has taken over.

Gus enjoying his box at the heater vent.





As always, we enjoy hearing from you, either here in comments or on our Facebook Denali Rose Sailboat page.


1 comment:

  1. And I thought it was terrific that the boat came with a complete set of signal flags [AKA alphabetical towels and rags...]

    ReplyDelete

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