When I awoke on the first day of my staycation I was greeted by a mountain of towels waiting to be folded on the living room couch. They sat patiently knowing that soon they would be tri-folded and neatly stacked in the linen closet ready to be used, tossed, and washed yet again. As I folded the trusty terries, it occurred to me that I must have done this hundreds, if not thousands — hell, millions — of times in my life.
It also occurred to me that someone, somewhere had to have broken some Guinness record for the most folded towels in a lifetime.
So I did what everyone else does while on staycation, I turned on the MacBook and looked it up.
Anyway, I discovered that there are no records of how many towels can be folded in any parameters, an hour, a day or even a week. In fact the world’s greatest record-breaking organization that keeps track of the fastest, longest, and most of everything didn’t have towels in any guise at all. It did, however, have how many needles inserted into a human head (2,009) longest French knitting, (13.15 miles), and widest tongue (3.1 inches at the widest), to name a few, but nary a trussed towel in the pile.
So my next quest was for a calculator. In my house that’s more impossible than locating the Holy Grail. I eventually found it in the last place I would have thought — in the draw where it belonged. Go figure. Guinness didn’t have “how-long” it took to find a calculator category either, but I digress.
As I twirled, turned and pirouetted through a prima ballerina performance, I very conservatively estimated that I had folded at least 30 towels a week, 52 weeks a year, since I was about 7 years old (about 50, but I ain’t saying for sure), with a few weeks off for child bearing, vacation (but you double up when you get home), and help from outside sources, the grand total was about 80,000 trussed and tucked terries.
By the time I finished folding the current batch, looking up the information and enjoying a much-needed cup of joe, my arms felt like wet spaghetti noodles. But before I could take a sigh of relief, ice up my arms and say “Egyptian cotton, 300 count,” there was my husband Bob bringing up the next load of — you guessed it — towels — to be folded. Make that 80,030 and counting.
Not for Nuthin, I think Guinness should seriously consider adding the “How many towels folded” category to its list of fastest, longest, and most achievements. Then I’d go down in the history books.
Read Joanna DelBuono's column every Wednesday on BrooklynDaily.com. She can be e-mailed at JDelBuono@cnglocal.com.
