‘Esh Meh,’ Whispered the Towel

I work out in the basement. I have a dingy white towel that I fold if I’m on my knee or elbow, or in case I break a sweat. The other day I caught it moving. Not a lot. Just a little. And when I set it back on the chair it seemed to whisper, “Esh meh.”

Not unrelated, our laundry is down. The washer broke the other day. By other day I mean three weeks ago. Or as Phoebe says, “When are they coming!? I can’t live like this! It’s been almost two months!”

Phoebe is right, though. We’re in our deep winter wardrobe. We sit down to dinner in turtlenecks and snow pants.

The guy came and said something about the motor and the rotor and then a week later he came back with the parts and fixed it and it worked for two loads and it was glorious absolutely glorious FRESH CLEAN COTHES and then it started to make a noise a very bad noise so we stopped the machine midway because it was a very very very bad noise like peppercorns being milled only instead of peppercorns… a Honda. And then the guy came again a few days later and said, ‘yeah, sometimes these parts are bad‘ and reordered the same parts which won’t come till the end of this week and then we won’t see him until the middle of the following week because everyone is just so busy with the pandemic and everything.

But I digress.

This morning the towel was sitting up waiting for me.

“Wash me,” it said with the full power of speech in a rich beautiful baritone. “Not esh meh. I’ve been saying wash me.”

“Oh.”

“ESH MEH?!” it laughed maniacally falling to the floor in a heap.

Full disclosure: Ok, not snow pants, but flannel shirts and heavy corduroy for sure.

Fuller disclosure: If the dishwasher goes…

Fullest disclosure: A sentient towel is nothing without bones and a muscular system so no worries here.