I have a hatred for wasting paper towels. Paper anything, really. My sister and I believe there is a deep-seated cause for this, namely our father’s insane quirks which included his Only Four Squares! Rule for toilet paper and You Always Use it At Least Twice Rule for Kleenex. Yes, I know. Believe me, I know. You could argue he is from the hippie generation and an original conservationist. You could also argue he is one of the most frugal humans on the planet. Either one fits.
So here at the office, where we use normal household Bounty paper towels and not the brown-or-white industrial kind, I have started this bizarre habit of paper towel-hoarding in my cube.
I don’t find drying your hands to be a sufficient usage for paper towels, so if I used one just to dry my hands, I bring it back to my cube and either stuff it into my bag (so no one sees how bizarre I am), or try to disguise it in plain sight for later use, like folding it into coaster size and placing it under my coffee cup. I pretend to care about my desktop surface while actually disguising my ridiculous OCD. Generally, I allow a maximum of two bunched-up, plain-view paper products on my desk top (including Kleenex used for wiping my eyes after eye drops, a result of Lasik), so there is usually a used Kleenex or something hanging around (eye-wiping only, even I have standards). Right now my desk features one paper towel “coaster,” one bunched up napkin, and a folded Kleenex stuffed under my key board. Yes, this is getting to be alarming. Maybe I should start tucking a hand towel into my waistband so I can wipe my hands /blot my eyes dry without further wasting trees. Think that would fly below the dress code radar?
One a side note, in reading Apartment Therapy and its related spinoffs, please note the little re-use tricks such as these that are gaining popularity for hipsters and yupsters from Silver Lake to Williamsburg. Washed-out yogurt cups to house different sized nails and screws? Been going on for decades in my parents’ garage. Stacking little slivers of soap together and “making” a new bar? Definitely. Re-using paper towels is the next big thing! There’s going to be some nifty little owl-embroidered paper towel reuser up on Etsy in a minute, I bet you.
