The List [of singularities]

We all have them.

I speak, of course, of those things that are truly singular.  What makes me, me -- and you, you, and how we figure each other out. 

Some people play a version of 20 Questions.  I use The List as a foolproof way to painlessly elicit revelatory information.

When I was young and stupid, My List was long.  Not too adept at posing a good essay question, My List actually resembled a failed version of 20 Questions, or maybe an employment application. 

Whom did you vote for in the last presidential election, and why? 

Plus, I had a host of inquiries based on the "if you were stranded on a deserted island, what 3...?" paradigm.

Now that I am old, but still stupid, I don't remember as much, as well -- so the list is short and not as dependent on an interrogation mark. 

If hard-pressed and wits are out the window, there is only one item on it -- because a good conversation around this one item will tell you everything one person might want to know about another:

How To Make 6 Cups Of Rice (Jasmine).

The only reason it isn't coffee or tea is that I believe more people learn to make rice than learn to make coffee or tea.  I might be wrong.

Of course, it used to be, simply:  How To Make Rice but along came familiarity with foreign cuisines, hugely popular Farmer's Markets, and The Food Network, and suddenly everyone wants to know what kind of rice I want, and how much, and what kind of flavor profile am I working with, anyway? 

People get all "it depends"-y on me. 

Maybe I shouldn't go along with the complications.  You know?  Know what I mean?

Maybe I should stick with How To Make Rice, refuse to amplify, and see what I end up being served.  But that's too much like life, ungoverned, when the goal of The List is to cut through the rank murk of existence! 

Anyway, I am thinking of adding another domestic-type question item to The List:  What is the correct thing to do with bath towels after bathing? (Interrogative phrasing, optional)

Recent conversations around The Manor have brought a riot of responses to that seemingly simple query!  Surprisingly, La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore made me qualify my question -- Did I mean, said she, towels at home, in her bathroom, towels at home, but not in her bathroom, towels away, as in a fancy hotel, or towels away, as in a homestyle bed-and-breakfast?  Have I washed my hair or have I kept a dry head about me?  Have I a fluffy, thirsty, proper cotton towel or..."

That's just Bianca.  At least she didn't think of towels-while-camping versus towels-during-an-extended -stay-at-a-refugee-camp or bring up the always thorny issue of standard bath towel versus bath sheet. Besides, her questions are her conversation, her way of keeping it all about The Castafiore while still wielding the control of deflection.

Of course, the key to The List is to use it as a foundation for a normal conversation, although it is important not to stray too far from the literal subject -- that means you must seriously talk rice or talk towels in the same manner as people talk turkey.

Given my great love of origins, etymologies, translation, and derivations, I ought to be confessional and tell you how it was that the after-bath towel made its way onto The List [of singularities].

We are fortunate to have modern bathrooms aplenty at Marlinspike Hall, the non-modernized former salles de bains having been converted into surprising little solaria.  We are equipped with fans and do not suffer problems from humidity, for example.  And so I am constantly irked by the experience of transferring wet, freshly laundered, sweet-smelling clothes to the dryer * -- because I first must remove the two (and always the same two) bath towels that Fred has tossed in, following his shower.  The only time these towels are freshly laundered is when I have served up a fresh conniption fit, as I did earlier today, after the blast of stale air almost made me pass out.  ["Stale Male" would make an appropriate name for a cologne based on those essential oils...]

The conversation was fascinating.

"Fred, please, how many times do I have to ask you not to put dirty things into the dryer?"

"But darling, the towels aren't dirty.  I only use them after a shower!"

And so on, and so forth.

Be complicated, if you wish, and put abortion, capital punishment, or equal rights [for _____ ] on Your List, but rice and towels are about as much complication as I can handle.



* I agree!  Why have 39 bedrooms and almost as many baths -- but only one modern dryer?  Captain Haddock and I still go round and round on that thorny issue.