towel story

Put yourself in someone else's shoes

The importance of a clean towel can't be over emphasized

Lohbado didn’t know how the bugs got into his apartment. Not bed bugs...  he found flat shiny green things. At first it looked like part of Jane’s necklace. Lohbado looked closer. Three dead bugs on a hand towel on the floor... he should have hung the towel to dry, then maybe bugs would never have entered his mind. Too late... three shiny green bugs on a damp towel, Lohbado put the bugs on a plastic lid and hung the damp towel on a hook in the bathroom.

He went to sleep. About 3 AM, a hot, itchy, wetness on the top of his head woke him from a deep sleep. He reached up to scratch and stuck his finger into a sticky hole, like someone had bored a hole through his skull, into the brain, trepanning. He ran to the bathroom, grabbed a mirror and saw green shiny bugs crawling in and out of the hole, as if they’d just discovered paradise in Lohbado’s brain and were inviting friends to a brain-jelly fiesta.

Lohbado grabbed the towel off the hook and dabbed at the hole on the crown of his head. A round pink spot appeared on the towel. It wasn’t blood. That’s what freaked him out the most, the fact that it didn’t resemble anything, just a pink splotch. The hole didn’t hurt. He wiped away the bugs, but more appeared. He turned on the hot water and held the towel under the faucet. He stood in the bath tub and wrung hot water out of the towel, into the hole. 

Some of the water must have gone into his brain. His body shivered. An incredible sweetness ran through his nervous system. He kept dipping the towel in water and squeezing it out into the hole, until he felt dizzy from overwhelming bliss.

He filled the tub with hot water, eased himself in and fell asleep, with the towel over the hole in his head. Lohbado dreamed he’d become a holy man, dressed in a sky blue gown and wearing a coral green necklace of insect shells. Around his neck, he wore a beige towel to catch the river of drool that flowed from his mouth. He promised that if Oogah would deliver him from the bug affliction, he would always treat his towels with respect, making sure they hung on proper hooks or towel racks.

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