Neatness Counts

I admit it…I love things that are neat and tidy…I can still hear the authoritative voice of my 5th grade teacher Mrs. Reeves, with her flaming red hair and sensible shoes.  She didn’t just expect excellence of the 10 year olds in her class, she demanded it.  On the Friday in the mid-term that we took a cursive writing exam to see how well we were progressing, she gave us very exact instructions of what we were to do and explained in detail how we would be graded.  Then as almost an after thought, as though it hardly even needed to be spoken, she added firmly “Remember, neatness counts!”

I hear her to this day and strive to make or keep things neat.  I drive my family crazy sometimes, with my tidying.  “Where is my coffee cup?”, my husband might be heard to say. ‘Oh I thought you were done so I put it in the dishwasher.”, is my reply.  Or “Where’s that towel I was using?”  “Oh, I thought it was just left lying around and I put it in the laundry.”  You get the picture.  Perhaps there is a touch of OCD going on, or maybe it is just that seeing things neatly arranged is so much more pleasing.

In any event, on a recent visit to a very lovely hotel in New Orleans I happened to notice that the towels were particularly straight and tidy.  They are usually better hung in hotels than most of us hang our towels at home of course, because there is a maid devoted to getting such things right.  But still, these towels were the straightest and neatest on the towel rack that I could remember ever seeing, so I decided to investigate.  What I found was that it was the way they were folded that seemed to make the difference.

I had always folded my towels in thirds but started with the towel completely open and folded the whole length of the towel over itself, envelope style, and then folded it in half, and then in half again.  Try as I would, they were never perfectly even or straight.

So on the chance that there are others out there who smile and feel a deep sense of satisfaction when things are particularly neat and tidy I offer this discovery of towel folding. (I am right handed so you might want to reverse this process if you are a lefty.)

1. Lay the towel on a flat surface and fold it in half  from one short end to the other, bringing the edge that is being folded up (the one on top now) to just about 1 inch shorter than the edge on the bottom

2. Fold the side closest to you 1/3 of the way in as if you were folding a letter.

3. Fold the side furthest away over the first fold

4. Fold the whole towel in half bringing the folded edge to the straight edge but keeping it about 1 inch from the end .

5. Now whether you are hanging your towels or storing them in the linen closet, they are perfectly folded and neat and ready when you need them.

“Remember, neatness counts!”  Mrs. Reeves would be so pleased 🙂