Little Blue Rags

When my former wife dropped my younger son off to live with me and his brother, she gave me a large, clear plastic drawstring bag of little blue rags, washcloth-sized, institutional. She now works at a hospital, swing shift; her rheumatoid arthritis is acting up again. I guess she gets these rags easily. She said, you know, they're good to have around for cleaning. It was no big deal. I took about half a dozen out and stacked them on a knee-high counter shelf under the phone. When I need one to dry something or take care of a spill I reach down and get one from the neat stack, knowing it's clean. I toss the dirty ones into a soda case flat under the sink. After they're washed they go back on the shelf. Once in a while a really messy accident happens here, and I go to the clear bag for extras. My sons think these things are disposable. They wipe something up and throw the cloth away. They take a few and put them in a drawer somewhere and forget about them. Things like these shouldn't bother me, but they do. I don't know why I am so involved in the cycle of these rags. I swear my former wife said she uses and reuses them. Recently, when I spoke to her on the phone, I swear she laughed: No, throw them away! Before I started to write this I was thinking that the most important consideration must be for the boys to have easy unchaging access to a clean rag in the kitchen; they must be assured of things like this, always in their place, soft and loyal. What makes it the most important consideration is the humor one can find in one's obsessions as they unfold, and replacements ever-returning.