Our Marriage has Turned to Rags

Back in August of 2003, Sam and I moved from our first apartment into our first house.  My mom came down to help with the move, and also to help with the arrival of her first grandchild who would make his appearance less than one week after said move.  It was an exciting time.  No doubts about that.

(And just to throw this out there, despite what people think, moving at 9 months pregnant is a brilliant idea.  At that point, if you work yourself into labor, no big deal.  But also, you have the perfect excuse to act solely as supervisor and be all crazy and emotional.  No one thought twice about it.  Or if they did, they wisely kept it to themselves out of fear of the irrational pregnant woman.)

If you've ever moved, you know that part of the moving process is deep cleaning; a type of cleaning that involves some hardcore supplies, one of which is an abundance of rags.  My mom was helping with this task, and asked me where we keep our rags.  I guess I got that look I get sometimes (and have apparently passed on to Ben & Abby), because she replied, "Oh.  I guess you and Sam haven't been married long enough to have rags."  And you know...she was right. 

We were blessed with more wedding gifts than a couple should receive.  We got everything we ever needed and more than we could have ever wanted.  Our friends and family are amazing.  (I hope they know that I think that.)  But no one gave us any rags.  We had lots of new towels, of all different varieties; hand, bath, beach, fingertip, kitchen.  Who wants to use those on the baseboards and that furry hole where a refrigerator used to be? 

I don't remember what we ended up doing.  I guess we sacrificed a few of our not-brand-new towels.  What I do remember is that when my dad came down to pick my mom up, he brought a bag full of rags to us.  It was a great present.

Flash forward to now.  Seven years later.  I don't know what the life span of a bath towel is supposed to be.  I don't remember my mom ever buying new towels in my entire childhood, but it might have been one of those things that children just don't notice.  Or maybe they made things better back then.  The point is, seven years later, our towels are nearing their end of days.  Most of them have either a bleach stain, a hole, or have lost the strong seam around the edges and are starting to tatter.  Some suffer from all of those ailments.  The closet in our laundry room is quickly becoming less and less of a supply closet and more and more a rag closet.  What's amazing is that most every time I pick a rag out of there I can remember what it endured to be demoted to the rag closet.  It might have been part of the infamous bathroom project, cleaned up a gallon of tea and not gotten washed quickly enough afterward, been the only thing within an arms reach available to serve as a dipstick wiper, gotten snagged in a car door and yanked out not-so-carefully.  Memories.

I envision the entire laundry room filling up from floor to ceiling with towel remnants.  Pretty soon I won't be able to even reach the washing machine.  It's going to be awesome.

Who knew that a closet full of rags would be such a sweet testament to a life spent together?  Looks like we've made it to one of our unofficial milestones of marriage; the filthy rags at seven years.

Maybe at ten years I'll get all weepy about having to replace one of our appliances.   Stay tuned.