We have learned a few things, or should I say relearned a few things in dealing with the pandemic.
On my last outing before everything shut down, I visited a restaurant supply and purchased five packages flat-fold paper towels, five rolls of paper towels, and 5 rolls of bathroom tissue in the giant dispenser size. I figured out that a stack of the paper towels in the kitchen handled the emergency spill situations. I “engineered” a method for using the giant bathroom tissue rolls.
The first shortage we encountered was paper towels. The rolls from the restaurant supply as well as another six pack I managed to get delivered went to my dad, who I was encouraging to stay home. I checked on my sister to see what she was not able get and sent her some paper towels also. I still had some from pre-pandemic stock. It was six weeks or more before you could get paper towels delivered from Prime or Walmart.
I found out that one of the industrial size rolls of bathroom tissue will last an entire month! When I went back to the regular stuff, it was quite a shock because it was, shall we say, of a higher quality.
The paper towel situation was far easier to deal with. I did not grow up with paper towels. Neither did Stan. I took the roll off the dispenser and we went back to the fifties and used real cloth towels. The flat-fold towels were used for microwaving and spills.
The next shortage or unattainable item turned out to be paper napkins. I set the table for almost every meal but with paper napkins. Well, back to the cloth napkins. Until then, I was not totally aware of just how many of those I have. I found out today when I ironed them all! I will continue to keep paper napkins for when our meal is out of a bag, and that is not very often. Real meals deserve real flatware, cloth napkins and our Fiesta plates.
I will be doing more laundry and ironing by using more cloth and less paper, but it is a small price to pay for reducing our environmental footprint. The towels and napkins fit in the load of light colors I was already doing each week, so no extra water used.
If you grew up in the fifties and sixties, I encourage you to try some of the old-school ways. We pretty much always eat at one of the two dining tables. We have been doing that for years. Now, I feel like we are upgrading our experience. It is amazing what a difference just a simple thing like a cloth napkin can do to enhance a meal.
