Tangentially related story: for almost the entire time Brian and I have been together, I've wanted to invest in some nice cloth napkins—even though for most of that time we haven't had a table. It just always felt mildly classless to offer our friends paper towels, even though nobody actually cared. Brian agreed on principle, but when we'd occasionally find ourselves in Crate & Barrel or similar and look at the options, he'd always be ridiculously picky about them—solid colors were boring, patterns were ugly, half-polyester wouldn't be absorbent enough, they were all too expensive, etc., etc. So for fourteen years we used paper towels.

Recently we finally have room for a (small) table (which, entertainingly, we use way more than when we had a big oak formal dining table). And shortly after we got it, my grandmother sent me a package—she does this sometimes, usually with a few things she's recently found in her occasional attempts at decluttering, and never with any note of explanation. Anyway, one of the items in this package was a light pink handkerchief (almost certainly not meant to be used as a suggestive accessory, though I admit to some temptation on that front). Which got me reminiscing to Brian about how she used to have a giant stack of bandanas she'd use for napkins when I was a kid and she and my grandfather would host cookouts/family dinners.

And Brian was all, "Do you think she'd have more?"

And I blinked, and thought, and said "She almost never throws anything out, so probably. I could shoot her an email?"

And now we have a giant stack of vintage bandanas that make excellent (and interesting) napkins, and didn't cost us a cent. Hooray recycling!