your towels are how old?

Have you ever had a moment where you realize that the rest of the world doesn't do something the way that you do it or even that something about you is not normal to everyone else? Recently, I have had several such revelations. We will start with one of them, going in no particular order.

1. Towels from decades past
I moved into the house that I am living in not that long ago and to say that my closet space in my room is a little cramped might be an understatement. I am not one of those people that has tons of closet crap and still my storage space is limited. I decided to put my towels in a random hall closet because there was no room in mine. I went to grab the stack and realized that I only have 2. Yep, I only own 2 towels. This was part one of this towel revelation. I thought, "Maybe I should get a few more towels".....then it hit me....these towels are monogrammed with my initials.....these towels were high school graduation gifts. Now this would not be a problem if I was say, 20 years old and in my 2nd or 3rd year at Clemson, but as my sister graciously pointed out to me last night, I graduated from high school 9 years ago. Those towels have been with me for nearly a decade.....and I had seriously NEVER thought about 9 year old towels from high school graduation being strange until that moment. It has also been pointed out to me that it might be more than strange...it might be gross. Strangeness I can agree with, but I will maintain that these towels, though ancient, do not have the "towel funk." They smell clean when I wash them and after I use them....they are not threadbare and it has NEVER occurred to me that maybe I should get new ones. I have yet to be in a stage of life where buying towels or receiving towels was part of the gig so it has just never crossed my mind. I was, however, told last night that I now have a full-time job and should consider buying some new ones. I am really not sure I can even communicate how far off my radar something like buying towels is. Maybe, and hopefully for their sake, that will change if I ever have a family, but for now......nope.

2. Soap and washcloths and body wash and loofahs.
I only use one item out of that list of things above.........soap.......a bar of soap. No wash cloth (I don't own any)! No body wash! No Loofah! No other cleanser applying agent or tool. It has been brought to my attention many times in my life that this is strange. Here is my theory.....Why would I take the bar of soap and take the time to put it on a washcloth and then put the washcloth on me, when I could just cut out the middle man and put the soap directly on me? This makes perfect sense to me. You waste no soap or time on a washcloth. I have been told that, "That is the way that men shower." Well, maybe men have a few things right....they tend to do things much simpler than women and I am a fan of simple. What is often interesting, is when I am at other people's houses and I am about to take a shower. Most of the time people either ask if you want one or just hand you a wash cloth. When they ask if I want one and I say, "No, I don't need one" they often give me a funny look....as if their mind can't fathom how I could get clean without one. If they don't ask, and they just put one in the bathroom, I have to decide whether or not I am going to leave it and have them wonder what I used to get clean, or wet it and pretend that I used it. I haven't really landed on a consistent solution for this. Sometimes I do one and sometimes I do the other.
This whole me not using washcloths thing came up in a large group of people at seminary one time. We were playing catch phrase (keep in mind most of these people I did not know well) and the word was wash cloths. It was my roommates turn and she immediately said, "AJ, you don't use these when you bathe." It was the perfect way to get me to guess the word wash cloths as well as getting everyone in the room to think about me bathing.

So there they are.....2 of my quirks that happen to both be about bathing. I am sure there are more, but that is enough, and probably too much, information about me for now.