Company Towels

One of the first things a young boy learns, usually the hard way is 1) "Young man, you are not company! Do NOT wipe your hands on Company Towels!! and 2) Company Towels are NEVER to be used for ANY reason.

In the photos (not ours, from the web) you can see a lovely arrangement of Company Towels. As stated above, these towels are never to be used under any circumstances. When you wash your hands you either look around till you find a regular towel or dry your hands on your pants. (A boy child eventually learns to wipe them down on the cuffs of his pants so as not to experience ridicule about pants wet in the wrong place.) 

One might consider rubbing hands through your hair first so as to have that "wet and wild look" women love. It is not your looks that attracts women but the fact that you DID NOT use the Company Towels and chose to spare the towel by rubbing your wet hands through your hair.

I don't know who invented the rule or first wove Company Towels. I read in National Geographic that they found Company Towels in King Tut's tomb, still unused since 1323 BC.
According to a papyrus found inside King Tut's wrappings, some slave or priest or mummy wrapper said, "We're almost out of wrapping bandages but there are some Company Towels over there." He was then sealed in the inner room where they found him along with millions of scarabs for suggesting using Company Towels. (in Hieroglyphs Company Towels is spelled "basket, noose, owl, steel, vulture, ripple of water, two reeds, loaf, lasso, quail chick, reed, lion, folded cloth") The folded cloth is actually a representation of a Company Towel made of the finest Egyptian Cotton.

When Mama moved from her condo into a nursing home we found not only the Company Towels that hung in her full and half bath, but EVERY Company Towel she had ever proudly displayed in the homes we lived in years before. Each was still carefully folded and wrapped, first in acid free tissue paper and then in fine linen cloth. They were then carefully stacked in a cedar box with an index as to which house and bathroom they went in along with photos of each set as displayed, the original receipts and notes on how each was folded and arranged. However, there was also a warning that they could never be used again and were not part of the estate in the event of her passing.

There were also instructions that they were to be left in the tissue and fine linen cloth in the cedar box

and the box permanently sealed in plastic similar to the plastic slip covers (see photo attached for reference) that protected her living room furniture when Brother Mike and I were children. 

The box and contents were then taken and buried in an undisclosed spot, much like the fabled Elephant Graveyard. Generations of Company Towels from our family (maternal side, of course) are buried there. Each family has a secret Company Towel Graveyard. The location is passed from one woman to another when they get their first Company Towels.

I was not only sworn to secrecy about the location, but was also hypnotized so as not to even remember where the Company Towel Graveyard was. My cell phone was magnetically wiped clean and my GPS destroyed, ground to dust.

The every day towels that we used daily were much like (and I suspect manufactured by) the Scotts single ply toilet paper one finds in public restrooms and cheap motels. (towel photo attached). You will note that strings do hand down, as they should. The appropriate way to display an every day towel is stretched out wide with strings hanging down for all to see as if a badge of honor or like a "yellow ribbon tied 'round an old oak tree". 

Here is a neat fact about that song: Irwin Levine and L. Russell Brown wrote the song as they remembered the off white, yellowed, stringy every day towels from their childhood. The song originally suggested one such towel be hung from a branch of the old oak tree. However their respective mothers got wind of the song and insisted it be changed so as not to show disrespect to the Company Towels of their youth. Tony Orlando was pressured by his Dawn singers to not sing the original lyrics.

One of our favorite games as a child was to see how much of a children's book we could read through one of the every day towels. You might try it at home with your kids or grandkids! It is a fun way to pass the time on a rainy day or even one of those cold, snowy stay at home days of winter.
First pick out their favorite book. It can be something like Dr Seuss' "Hop On Pop" or my favorite, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain. Lay an every day towel over the pages of the book, make sure the lights are turned on overhead and there are no wrinkles in the towel (it is still possible to read through the wrinkles, but it can strain a child's eyes a bit.)

As the child reads congratulate them and remind them the game should NEVER be played with Company Towels and that those towels are NEVER to be touched by any hands other than that of the appropriate woman type lady person.

How do you dry yourself with an every day towel you ask? It is not easy as they are produced from petroleum by-products and are made to be non-absorbent. 

When finishing your shower or bath it is advisable to have a window squeegee on hand to squeegee excess water from your body. The reason Daddy always gave us burr haircuts when we were kids was to keep from having to dry our hair. That is also why hand held hair dryers were invented. Better to use electricity and ruin the environment than even consider using Company Towels to dry your locks!
You then attempts to dry off with the every day towel and when that fails it is suggested that if you live in the country and some distance from neighbors you run nekkid along the road, allowing the wind to dry your hair and skin. 

Do note that you may have to wash the dust from your feet with a hose before entering your home. You then lay on the grass with feet and legs in the air to allow the sun to dry the water from them.
If that is not possible and you have wall to wall carpeting, you are in luck! Simply lay on the floor and roll from side to side till the carpet absorbs the excess water.

A final note about Company Towels: A Communist Plot arose years ago suggesting that Company Towels could be transformed, demoted, misused by designating them every day towels when the woman of the house changed decor or bathroom color. This could be no further from the truth and a terrible falsehood perpetrated to speed up the downfall of western civilization!

As noted above, the appropriate method of changing colors, styles or even sizes of Company Towels is to carefully fold them, wrap them first in acid free tissue paper and then fine linen cloth. They are then placed in a cedar box (hand crafted in the hills of deepest Appalachia by one family who was given the task and secret of the building such boxes 42 generations ago.) and never to be used again.
Even if the woman of the house goes back to the previous color or decor these retired Company Towels are not to be unwrapped in disgrace. A whole new set of Company Towels would be purchased, hopefully at great cost and with no regard to budget or future retirement plans of her spouse.