TALK TO US
WITH TOWELS.
BY ROB SEARS
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Dear Guest:
Every year, hotels use tons of detergent and millions of gallons of water to wash towels that have only been used once. If you are happy to reuse your towels, please hang them on the rail provided.
If you would like us to wash your towels, please leave them on the bathroom floor.
If you are not sure what you want, please drape the towels ambiguously over something. Maybe you like the feeling of clean towels against your skin but the tiny Al Gore who acts as your environmental conscience is making a tutting noise in your ear. We are happy to shoulder the burden of decision for you.
If you would like to not have to worry about the environment ever again and just have things washed at all hours, willy-nilly, several times a day, please use your towels as a blank surface on which to draw up designs for a simple clockwork machine that makes
endless amounts of energy from pocket lint. Your designs will be marginally better than designs done on paper, because as well as saving the world, yours will be able to be used to dry yourself.
If you have used your towels to design a simple clockwork machine that makes endless amounts of energy out of pocket lint but you would like us to wash them anyway, what is wrong with you? The designs on those towels could save the world. Maybe you work for an evil automobile company with a vested interest in our addiction to oil? If so, we wonder why you drew up the designs in the first place. You must be a very conflicted person.
If you are a very conflicted person and would like to make a cry for help, one way would be to defecate in the towels and arrange them in bundles in the corner of your room. Then, when our staff has cleaned them up, go down to the lobby and tell everyone who will listen that your poo-poo pyramid has been dismantled and you don't know what to do. You will soon be taken away. If, on the other hand, you would like to cut the maids a break, maybe you would consider washing the towels yourself? We pay our maids very little. Well, very little money; the value of not reporting them to Immigration must be considerable.
Finally, if you are dissatisfied in any way with our towels—perhaps they are too scratchy or bear the crest of a rival hotel—please let us know. But don't just tell us—you'd probably get a blank look. Better to soak the towels in water, hide in wait in the corridor, and surprise us with a good whip to the hindquarters when we come walking past. It's the only language we understand.
Yours sincerely,
The Hotel Management Team
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