Midwest Memo
Adios to the tea towel
by Alan Shultz

I'd like to ask a favor. Put down this newspaper, march into the kitchen and check out the oven handle on the stove. Is there a towel hanging from said oven handle? Does said towel have a rooster on it? If not a rooster, a country scene, or a Dutch looking pattern or, if you missed the change of season, a Santa?

At the risk of seeming wasteful or capricious, could you do me a favor? Could you toss the towel? And if you can't part with this little bit of country or Christmas or Holland, could you please send the tea towel out to the garage for some chores or down in the basement for some cleanup?

I am on a mission to get these little tea towels off the oven handles of the world's collective stoves.

First off, the function of these towels draped over oven handles all over the land is not uniformly understood. Some families use the towels to dry off the dishes. Others have the towels on hand to dry off one's hands. There are tea towels hanging around simply for decoration and others used strictly for clean up. For all I know, some folks use the towel hanging on their stove handle to wipe Fido's paws when he bounds in from chasing squirrels.

Given that there is no universally understood function for the tea towel hanging on the stove handle there is a big chance the fancy rag will be used for cross purposes. In comes Fido from the back yard and out goes the water glasses clean from the sink and dried from... you guessed it. In between Fido and the dish drying little cousin Tommy sneezed. Anyone got a hankie? Oh my.

Let's face it, the oven handle is not a clothes drying line. Why should it be treated as such? And when one opens the oven and the towel falls to the floor- well, how often does it make it to the laundry and how many times does it just get hung back up?

Little tea towels hanging on oven doors also tempt one to use them in lieu of potholders or oven mitts. That's usually one extra hot mistake. But who can blame the guy who tries to wrestle the piping hot pot roast from the oven with a couple tea towels hanging on the oven door? Too handy they are. And when the pot roast sloshes gravy before making it to the counter because it's so

hot, hot, hot- well isn't it

handy for Mr. I Should Have Used A Pot Holder to wipe the gravy spill with the tea towel before stuffing it back over the oven handle.

It would be one thing if there was universal agreement on the purpose of the towel hanging on the oven door handle. Tea towel rules, so to speak. But there is no such agreement. When five branches of the family gather on a given holiday one can only imagine the multi function purpose the lowly tea towel on the oven door gets put to use.

And then there's the esthetics. In my job selling real estate I see all these fancy kitchens with sleek designer finishes and stainless appliances. These kitchens designed more for looks than for function are edgy and arty and sleek. Sleek, that is, except for the inevitable little towel hanging from the oven handle - the towel with little mice, or spoons or tiny corn cobs stitched all over.

We need a new national health campaign to get the tea towel off the oven door handle and back on the.....hmmm... tea tray?