Monday, June 1, 2009

A Story with a Happy Ending




A while ago, I bought some unsatisfactory dish towels at K-Mart in Bridgehampton. They are the opposite of absorbent. Water seems to bead up on their surface. So when I was in the 5&10 considering some grosgrain ribbon a couple of weeks back and saw some very soft dish cloths made from flour sack material all the way in the rear of the store near the bolts of felt and calico, I wondered if I should replace my K-Mart cloths. I didn’t buy any right then, because I am the kind of person who needs to mull over the purchase of a $1.99 dish towel for days before deciding whether or not to go ahead with it. Would these be better than the ones I already owned? Or would I be throwing good money after bad?

Coincidentally, I received an e-mail from Vicki at Country Lane (85 Main Street, 631-725-8245) at the end of last week, saying hello and wishing me luck with my blog. On Saturday morning I stopped by her shop to see what was new there, and what should I see on the counter near her cash register? A flour sack dish cloth, similar to the ones I had been thinking about, but with a beautiful transfer decoration. Unprompted (how could she have known I had been thinking about dish towel absorbency?), she extolled these towels’ softness, and how they seemed to function better with every washing. In an instant, I asked her to hand one over. She probably thinks I’m an impulse shopper! Ha ha! I took the towel home, hung it on the handle of my oven door and admired it. Because of Vicki’s endorsement, I was no longer worried that the towel wouldn’t live up to my expectations. Then I started to think about how it would be a pity to actually use it, since it looked so nice there. So I returned to the 5&10 to buy a few plain white ones, that are now sitting in the drawer formerly inhabited by the very bad towels.

UPDATE: Vicki just made me promise I would use her towel! I will report back on how it is holding up after I've washed it a few dozen times.

No comments:

Post a Comment