Orwells – "Dirty Sheets" (2014)

Take my body till the morning

Now I’m leaving without warning

When I was in law school, I washed my towels at least once a semester – whether they needed it or not!

I never understood why my then-girlfriend expressed shock and dismay when I told her that.  

Dirty towels

After all, your body is clean when you dry yourself after a shower.  So your towel gets wet, but it doesn’t get dirty.  Why would you need to wash it?  

Just hang it up after you use it – it’s good to go the next day.  (You can pop it in the dryer if you’re in a hurry.)

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Apparently there are some nudniks out there who question my reasoning.

“Based on the levels of microbes that can grow on towels, towels should be washed once a week, at the very least,” says microbiologist Jason Tetro, author of The Germ Code and The Germ Files and host of the Super Awesome Science Show podcast. 

“Studies looking into the microbial contamination of towels reveal they can grow into the hundreds of thousands and possibly millions within that time,” according to Tetro. “This may be enough to transfer back to your skin and lead to either odor or possible infection.”

According to Mr. Smartypants Tetro, your towel can transmit not only Staphylococcus aureus but aso its antibiotic-resistant version, MRSA (which can cause pneumonia and sepsis).

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Far be it from me to argue with a guy who hosts the Super Awesome Science Show podcast (which I believe has been nominated for a special Nobel Prize).  He’s obviously legit.

So I’m going to play it safe and start laundering my towels once a week.

But frankly, I’m a lot more concerned about what I would find if I shined a UV light on the bedding of the next hotel I stayed at than I am about my towels.  Click here if you wonder what I’m so worried about.

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The Orwells formed in 2011.  Four of the band’s original five members were classmates at York High School in Elmhurst, Illinois.  (Sounds a little like the origin story of my junior-high-school band, the Rogues.)

“Dirty Sheets” was released on the Orwells’ 2014 album, Disgraceland:

Click here to listen to “Dirty Sheets.”

Click here to buy the record from Amazon.