Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Is this rude? Or not?


If I were clever and had time, I'd put a link here to my post from January (or February) about going paperless in the kitchen, to set the stage for this post and this question. But in January we went paperless in the kitchen... no more paper towels or paper napkins. And I haven't said much about it because, honestly, it's been kind of a non-issue transition. We use dish towels and cloth napkins and have a little hamper in the pantry to toss them in for laundering. It's had pretty much zero impact on our laundry process because, really, how hard is it to throw a little hamper of kitchen towels in with the bath towels? Answer: not hard. At all.

The only *issue* has been my friend, who does not read this blog, so I am safe to talk about this. But my friend HATES the fact that I have no paper towels. It drives her nuts.

This is a good friend, who is very comfortable in my home and comes over a lot. We eat dinner here a lot and she knows her way around my kitchen.

So she came over this weekend with a six-pack of paper towels and tossed them in my pantry. I laughed and didn't make an issue of it. She did it in a half-joking way, but I KNOW that she is irked by me never having paper towels in the kitchen when she comes over.

So you tell me... rude? Not rude?

13 comments:

rockygrace said...

That is pretty rude, but then again, maybe she has a "thing" about cloth napkins.

OneTiredEma said...

Why does it bother her so much? If she were your laundress, maybe I'd understand. Does she spill a lot and call attention to herself?

People are just crazy sometimes.

Keetha said...

I think that was rude of her. Who is she to impose her ways in your kitchen? No, m'am. Your house, your ways, period.

How would she like it if you went in her kitchen, vanquished all the paper products, and brought cloth napkins and dishtowels?

Jen on the Edge said...

Yes, definitely rude. The question is, what do you do now?

My MIL and FIL are the only two people who ever drink coffee in my house, but to fuel their addiction during their once-yearly visits, I bought a coffee maker, just for them.

Guess what? My MIL bought us a French press coffee maker as a Christmas gift. A gift that is useless to us. I asked my MIL if she remembered the coffee maker that she had used the last time she was at our house and she informed me that it was inferior to what she had bought.

I fumed about it for a couple of years and when we moved I put the French press in a box of pots and pans and didn't pad it any way. Oh darn, it broke.

That was rather passive-aggressive, I agree. So my suggestion is that you take the paper towels back to your friend's house and tell her that you don't want them in your house.

chiara said...

Hmm, maybe a bit rude? I mean, it's your house, you can choose to have paper towels or not. And you're doing something to help the environment - the least she can do is deal with it when she's at your house since clearly she is probably using paper towels all the time at home clogging up landfills.

We still have them in our house, but we hardly ever use them. Takes us a full year to go through a Costco pack of rolls.

katydidnot said...

i don't think it's rude. i think it's crazy, but not rude. every time she comes over, take out like four paper towels and put a post-it on them with her name. then she has some while she's there and you can just keep being paper-free.

Anonymous said...

She's a good friend. She's over a lot. It's like bringing your own six pack to a party. Or like when my Mom comes over I try to have tea made.

Kinda rude. But she's your friend. Just let her use them when she's over.

Lee said...

Only rude if you have almost no space to store the paper towels. Otherwise they are just going to sit there for a long time.

Maybe every time she uses a paper towel you can ask her to donate 5 cents that will go to a "Save the Trees" fund :)

Cynthia said...

Kinda rude. Perhaps she's a bit on the obsessive side and paper towels are her thing. If she's a good friend, I'd look the other way on it. I know I have my issues as well:P

Anna Whiston-Donaldson said...

Totally rude!

Full disclosure: I only use cloth napkins, but I'm a paper towel junkie.

It kind of bugs me that my sis doesn't use paper towels.

Lisa Wheeler Milton said...

It's better than being secretly crabby when you are supposed to be enjoying each other's company.

Of course, I don't have any great paper towel policies/needs, but it must have bugged her.

(A little OCD?)

I'm with Kate. Not worth stressing about.

Fantastic Forrest said...

I love Lee's suggestion. Ha!

Kathy said...

Hmmm, well I think she is rude. She isn't respecting your choice in how you live in your own home....poor form on her part, IMO.