Germans Like Scratchy Towels

Now, I’m not saying all Germans like scratchy bath towels, but my wife sure as hell does.

I first noticed this scratchy towel phenomenon in the bathroom of a student apartment building in Marburg, Germany. After emerging from a token-operated shower with exactly 10 minutes of hot water, I reached for the towel my wife had given me. It was thin, worn and so extraordinarily coarse it felt like sandpaper upon my American man-teets. I winced as I dried myself, feeling for all the world like Richard Pryor having his third degree burns hilariously scrubbed clean.

All of the towels I encountered in Germany were scratchy. Even my German teacher at Portland Community College warned me to bring my own towels for my trip; a little piece of advice I likely missed because I was picking my nose at the time. My wife claims these towels are good for my skin — all exfoliating and what not — but she also enjoys scouring herself raw with the Marquis de Sade’s shower luffa. I suppose I could claim my skin feels good after using German towels, but this would be like thanking a hot iron because it was all done burning me.

To be fair, however, American towels aren’t perfect; they’re oversized, overly soft and they leave lint in your overly abundant chest hair. Seriously, after using a new towel from Bed, Bath and Beyond, I look like Burt Reynolds lost a tickle fight with the Cookie Monster.

At present, my wife is converting all of my fluffy bachelor towels into face-scouring hurtcloths. She does this by leaving them out to dry for several days after washing; a process which somehow kills them and strips their souls away, leaving nothing but husks of coarse fiber and German cruelty. Even now I can hear their tortured banshee wails.

And this, my friends, is why The Wife and I can rest easy; confident that bump we hear every night isn’t an intruder at all. It’s just our haunted bathroom.

— OGM