We decided this summer that we needed new towels. This all came about because we had a hot water situation during the month of June which caused us to take baths in our son's bathroom instead of ours. Since we were using his bathroom, we used his towels, and we noticed that his towels were a LOT better than ours. His towels are what those in the towel business call "thirsty", and they do an excellent job of what you need a towel to do. This prompted us to decide that we really needed better towels in our bathroom. So began the quest for new towels. We discussed the prospect of buying towels before we went shopping. MY idea was to buy one each of several different towels, test each of them to see which one worked the best, then buy more of the one that we liked the best. Of course, there is a problem with this strategy that we did not foresee. If you buy one of enough different types of towels, you won't NEED to buy any more. You will, at this point, have a collection of one each of many different types of towels. But, as I said, we were on a quest. There was no logical thinking on my part involved in this venture. [Author's note: Notice that the shopping strategy is MY idea. This is because my wife does not care what kind of towels we have in our bathroom, just so long as there are towels and that they are clean. Therefore, she does not have a shopping strategy. Believe it or not, this happens quite often. She says that she is just practicing Buddhism, and not fixating on material possessions. Personally, I think that it is because I am the type of person that advertising agencies wish populated the planet. You advertise it, I want to try it. But, that's another story entirely.]

So, my wife humored me, and we went shopping for towels. The first store that we went to was one of those big box kind of household furnishings/linens stores. At the store, we mysteriously turned into Goldhighlightedlocks and her wife, Curlybrownhair. This towel is too soft. This towel is too thick. This towel is too thin. This towel is too big. This towel is not the exact shade of red that we want. You name the problem, we found it. You would have thought that we were negotiating world peace. People buy houses with less inspection than we gave those towels. Finally, we found a towel that we thought might work, so we bought it. To be perfectly accurate, we bought one towel, one washcloth and one hand towel. (Well, they each have their own specific job, therefore they each have their own necessary qualifications to be accepted as our towels of choice). We went to several other stores, inspected and bought acceptable towels from each of those stores, and headed home to try them and evaluate their performance.

Who needs Consumer Reports? We had our own Two-Dyke Consumer Report Test Squad. That night, I was the Designated Tester of the first set of towels. I drew my bath, dropped the washcloth in the water, and watched the pink spread through the tub. It was slightly reminiscent of "Psycho". Oops. Not good. But it's too late now. I braved the colorful water and took my bath. You know, I didn't realize that towels/washcloths need to have a certain amount of friction to do their jobs correctly. This washcloth glided over my face and body. I just didn't feel like I had gotten clean. The towel did dry fairly well, but it was also a bit too soft. Points against this towel for the pink water and the softness. Not looking good for towel number 1.

The next towel contestant was utilized by my beautiful wife. She took her bath, dried off, came to bed. "Is that a rash all over you?" I asked. No, it seemed that there were little bits of red towel lint all over her body. Everywhere. But it was fun getting them off of her. Give that towel one point for fun.

The Towel Trials continued until we had tested each and every towel that we had purchased, and rated each one accordingly. That's when we came to the realization that we now had plenty of towels. We didn't need to purchase any more, not even any more of the ones that we liked the best. So, our towels don't all match, not exactly. But they are in our bathroom, so no one will ever see them but us. And some of the towels work better than others. But at least we have new towels. Since that's what we set out to do, I guess we have accomplished our mission. We'll just know better than to let me determine buying strategy next time.