So, I'm doing this thing...

...where I'm not going to buy paper towels until I get my Cabela's Club Card paid off. The way I figure it, a gal who recklessly and ridiculously charges that much at that interest rate has no business spending money on luxuries until the card is paid off.

Plus, there's inflation. That is really biting me in the butt.

In addition, I really have to watch my spends, particularly with the next migration north. (Stay tuned for details!)

So...the paper towels had to go. Out of all the things in life, that seemed to be the most wasteful and extravagant sector of the Pyra universe.

Plus, I thought it would be a really cool experiment. Could I go back to this small inconsequential way of doing things in earlier times? I'm picturing myself as the modern-day Laura Ingalls Wilder, living in wild, remote areas...paper towel-less.

What is it about paper towels that seems lavish to me?

I'm thinking back to a time when these disposable towels must have been...nay, had to have been...promoted to get people to start using them. In doing that research, I found this ad from 1935 for ScotTowels. Towels you don't have to WASH!

Actually, the paper towel industry started earlier than that.

Toilet paper was already a thing, and the Scott family capitalized on this in 1870. So, in 1907, when Arthur Scott (of the Scott toilet paper family) received a shipment of too-thick toilet paper and realized he couldn't use it for his product, his entrepreneurial mind got to work. In the end, he determined to make paper hand towels from it because he'd heard about a school teacher who asked his students to use paper to wipe their hands. (At that time, communal towels were a thing in restrooms. The teacher Scott had heard of asked his students to use paper to prevent the spread of sickness.)

Paper-towel historian Cairo Ferguson tells us what Scott did to sell this new product:

He would perforate the accidentally thick toilet paper, and market it as a product for more sanitary hand drying. This new product was named ‘Sani-Towels’ and was marketed with the tagline “for use once by one user."

You can read more about the interesting history of paper towels in this link and in this link.

Back to my reality today, this disuse of paper towels serves as a daily reminder to pay off that Cabela's card. I know...it's weird, but it is working.

When I tell people about this new thing, the first response usually goes something like this: "What?! I could never do that! I'm too much of a germaphobe!"

I know, right? Me, too.

Our ancestors survived without paper towels. The global population has flourished without the assistance of paper towels. Why does my life have to be any different in quality? It's not like I was born with a roll of paper towels in my hand. I can do this thing!

Does anyone remember Grandma's dish rag? Spill a little Coke, and Grandma would say, "Go get the dish rag." It sat on the counter and was usually clean but moist. Evidence of use throughout the day.

So I'm going the way of the dish rag and kitchen towel. This should be do-able if I put a fresh one out each day and wash it out clean after use. Of course, I'll hang it out to dry between uses.

I'm not disclosing this new thing because I'm trying to virtue signal a holier-than-thy-paper-towel-usage message. In reality, I'm embarrassed by my stupidity about signing up for a credit card I didn't need at the time. (I did it to save $20 on that pair of hiking boots. Yep! I fell for it. They got me.)

The other day, I found a roll of paper towels I had in the Xterra. These came into the Godspeed and went directly under the sink...in case of emergency.

I'm not averse to using paper towels. This is just a little experiment.

I also saved the spare napkins from Culver's. Just in case.