Ode to the towel

Every once in a while I'd like to thank a particular object that has served me well(yes I'm bored, but at least I feel well enough to write, HURRAY!!!).

Dear towel,
We've been through a lot together. You've kept me dry and safe for so long, I don't even remember life before I had you.

Do you remember my crazy dog?

I'd be in my bathing suit. You would be hanging limp in my arms, safe and cozy, quietly anticipating a balmy day at the pool. I don't know if it was your wild array of colors, that rainbowy skittles mix, but whatever it was, you sparked an intense fury within my dog.

As we would make our way through the hallway on our way outside, more often than not that crazy canine would spot us. I swear that dog's eyes lit up like a slot machine on a million dollar take. You did something to him, your sexiness drove that dog to madness.

I really did try to run, it's true towel, I ran for your sake. But I ate too much ice cream, I drank too much coke, I was a piggy-wiggy, too damn lazy at the time, and because of my indolence, you suffered.

Alas, my reflexes were blunted by sloth and soon enough the dog was on top of us. Before I could even react, the dog's teeth were sunk deep in your cushy, porous fabric. I'm sorry towel, I wish I could have spared you the pain.

But you took it like a champ. You were the willing martyr, ready to sacrifice yourself for the good of the cause.

That dog was strong as an ox, and coupled with his monsterous teeth, he maintained an unyielding lock on you. Looking into my eyes, the dog would crouch lower towards the ground as he started thrashing you about with a wild glee. It was a glee I had never before witnessed, it was the glee of the demented. I'd try my best to protect you, to pull you away and save you from that terrible fate. Yet, I learned that letting you go and running for the pool was sometimes the best thing for both of us.

Towel, I did not mean to abandon you. I feel so ashamed these days, just thinking about those incidents. They gnaw at my core, they reduce me to guilt and intense introspection, I don't even know if I can respect myself anymore. My record would be sterling if it hadn't been for those incidents. I thought I could save you, by not fighting the dog and letting you go I thought things would be better. Only now do I realize that that kind of thinking was a pitiful attempt to camouflage my cowardice.

Yet somehow you managed to survive. In spite of my cowardice, you avoided becoming rags. I don't know how you did it. Was it sheer will power? I always thought you'd end up as a pile of rags, reduced to Sunday car washes and shining objects that inexplicably needed to look shiny. Your existence would truly have become existential and absurd, but if it had happened that way, I'm sure you would have discovered God, and found the strength to fight through the existential abyss.

I can't thank you enough. You took the pain, just so I could go swimming. You were such a stud, even after the crazy beat down you'd take, fresh with dog slobber and full of newly minted holes, you were still there for me, waiting to dry me off.

Damn you were tough.