“Why not?” I asked.
“Look at that.” She pointed to the phones. “We have plenty of callers lined up. Shall we go to the first call?”
I chuckled. “Nice change of subject, but yes, let’s go to the phones. They are blowing up this morning.” I pressed line one on the control board. “Kathleen in La Jolla Village, you’re on the air. What’s going on?”
“Hi, Dr. Tough Love. Hi, Lori.”
“Hi,” Lori said. “How can we help you this morning?”
“Well, I’m having a problem with my husband. He likes to use my towels in the bathroom and I hate it.”
“Which towels are you talking about?”
“All of them. My shower towel, my hand towel, and my face towel. It totally grosses me out when he uses them, because—you know, he’s a man.”
“Can you be more specific about the grossing-out part?”
“He’s a slob!”
I chuckled. “Okay, but back up a bit here. If he’s using your towels, that would typically mean that he just got done washing up. So, he should be using your towel to dry his clean hands or clean face. Am I wrong?”
The caller laughed hysterically. “You aresowrong you have no idea. You’re assuming he knows how to wash himself in the first place! He leaves disgusting things on my towels. There are stains and gross little blobs of unidentifiable objects that I really have no clue which orifice they came from. Just the thought makes me want to gag. They’re my towels and I don’t want him using any of them.”
“Have you always been protective of your towels?” Lori asked.
“No—not when we were dating, but once we got married I knew things had to change. I’m a much different person now. I’m not OCD, but I value cleanliness now more than ever. Basically, I’ve grown, and he’s just mutated.”
I grimaced and set my coffee down. “Disgusting.”
“Tell me about it!”
I shook my head. “No, I’m not talking about that. I just took a sip of my coffee and swallowed a little piece of something. Maybe it was some coffee grounds.”
Lori smirked. “Or maybe it was something from Kathleen’s towel.”
“You didn’t go there!” I shook my head in disgust. “Lori—did thatreallycome out of your mouth?”
She laughed. “I’m not proud, but it must mean you’re rubbing off on me. Scary, right?”
“Thatisscary.” I winked at her. “Kathleen, are you still there?”
“Yup and still completely disgusted with my husband,” she said. “What should I do?”
“Let me ask you this—what does your husband say when you tell him you don’t like him using your towels?”
“He says it’s insulting and hurtful. He also says couples are supposed to share things.”
“Well, there’s truth to what he’s saying on some level, but on the other hand, I will be the first to admit that some men need to be trained like dogs.”
“No argument from me,” Kathleen said.
Lori leaned into the microphone and smiled. “Or me.”
I chuckled. “Not a surprise, ladies. What if you teach him how to clean himself properly? Then when he does use your towel, you won’t even notice.”
Lori cleared her throat. “I’m going to have to step in here, because Dr. Tough Stuff is obviously living in a dream world. He doesn’t get what’s going on since he doesn’t have any female hormones that we know of.”
“I do get in touch with my feminine side on occasion,” I joked.
