The Wrath of the Wet Towel

I'm pretty sure the Roman Empire fell because of an ill-placed wet towel. I've done a lot of research, and I figure, what else could it have been?

Wet towels have been the source of insidious destruction for centuries. They're havens for vile bacteria, cause mildew in carpeting, leave a welt when used as a weapon, and on a daily basis, cause mothers worldwide to morph into claw-fingered witches.

I'm not sure if it's worse finding a wet towel in the laundry basket, infecting with evil spores the adjacent garments, or beside the basket, irreparably maiming the carpet fibers. At any rate, there has to be some maximum upper limit that the universe allows a woman to utter the phrase "Please hang up your wet towel." after which, she evaporates in a purple puff of karmic smoke.

"No one is going out to play with ANYBODY until this wet towel is properly quarantined on the towel hook! The EPA will be here in half an hour. I'm just saying."

Wet towels could be the new secret weapon of mass destruction. They can mildew an entire basket of laundry overnight - they can probably melt through spaceship bulkheads, just like alien saliva. (You can bet those astronauts would be hanging them up without being reminded!)

The most dangerous wet towel of all is the wadded-up wet towel (WWT), often found in unlikely places, and usually discovered by following an unpleasant musty odor. It seems to me that there must be some hard work involved--to wad up the sodden rectangle and work it, inch by inch, into the small area behind the toilet. More, dare I say, than tossing it over the towel rod. But no! This is not a matter of mere laziness, I tell you. It is all part of their evil master plan!

I have personally picked up approximately seventeen million WWTs since I gave birth. This works out to 4902.67 wet towels per day. Enough wet towels to service an entire community, really; Maybe a Third World country. Since I have only two children, it lends credence to the theory that WWTs breed well in captivity, creating mongrel striped wet towels, or even calicos (but only the females).

Of course, this speaks poorly of my skills as both a housekeeper and as a parent. I have no excuses. Either my life-skills instruction leaves a lot to be desired, or the children's genetic makeup handicaps them in this particular area. Either way: my fault. But I tell you, if I have to keep hanging up WWTs much longer, I'm probably going to get Carpal Towel Syndrome or something. And you can bet my insurance isn't going to cover it.

I can see where this is leading. Poor, overworked Mom, sporting horrible terrycloth-covered arm braces from palm to elbow, struggling to wrestle offending towels into proper thirds for hanging, even as the children cackle in the background comfortable in the thought that she will be well worn out before their teens, and therefore unable to enforce rules and curfews and such. A whole generation of children could be wrecked by this phenomenon! And that's not all.

Left unchecked, WWTs could proliferate to so such an extreme, that they might spill out of our homes, and onto roads. The entire US transportation grid is potentially at risk! Remember the alien saliva effect? Poor towel hygiene could bring down this country, make no bones about it. The end of modern civilization!

Archaeologists from millions of years in the future will be digging up petrified wads of wet towel, "Hey Irv! I found another one! Don't leave it on the ground - you know what these things did the last time around!"