Towels and sheets and linens... oh my!

I have very vivid memories of my childhood.

One such memory is of being at the mall with my Mom, and dealing with (what I considered) the most horrid and tragic of boring shopping excursions: perusing the linen store.

Oh, the pure and utter vileness of it all. I absolutely dreaded the linen store. I remember my Mom would pull me inside, claiming that she just "wanted to take a quick look" while I was forced to stand around and wait.

The minutes seemed to drag on for hours as I stood next to her, loudly sighing and rolling my eyes in exasperation. What on earth could she enjoy about looking at towels? They're fuzzy, they come in a variety of colours, yes. But they're towels. That's it.

And sheets? Oh. Mah. Goodness. Don't get me started on the sheets! In my youthful perspective, there was not a single thing that was interesting about sheets.

And yet, my Mom seemed to love it. She would browse around, deep in thought, touching, picking up, and scrutinizing everything.

One day, when I could take it no longer, I asked my Mom to make me a promise. "Please, please, puh-LEASE Mom... just shoot me if I ever tell you that I find linens interesting one day, okay??"

Mom chuckled good-naturedly and decided to end my misery by leaving the store.

It wasn't until a few years ago, when registering for our wedding with my husband, that I recalled those moments with my Mom so many years ago. Wedding registry list in hand, I came across the towel section at the Bay.

I stopped for a moment... tentatively let my hand graze the Liz Claiborne selection. And then it hit me.

I loved towels.

From the giant bath towels to the cute little face cloths... even the matching hand towels... oh my goodness - were towels always like this?? The colours and the softness and the variety.

It was like a new world to me. I had discovered a new towel-loving reality that I never knew existed within me.

Perhaps I was more like my Mom than I realized. Perhaps I was just maturing. Or perhaps I hadn't given towels their due respect when I was a kid.

Whatever it was - one thing was certain. One day I would be inflicting my own child with the Linen Store Torture that I faced as a kid. And if he or she thinks loudly sighing and rolling their eyes will pull me away from the beauty of it all, well - they're going to be sadly mistaken.

I'm just not as patient as my Mom proved to be.