What Are People Doing With My Napkins?

Here at the Baer House Inn, I like to set a pretty table. We use china and crystal and cloth napkins for breakfast every day. We try to add special touches for special events. Something about a pretty table makes the meal seem that much better, at least in my humble opinion.

Photo by P. Rickrode, May 2018. Baer House Inn

Unfortunately, some people don’t appreciate the finer things in life. Sometimes I find my china coffee cups outside. Really? It’s china. I understand that people like to sit on the porches – hey they’re nice porches – but please don’t leave your cup out there. Bring it back down to the dining room. But, that’s an entire blog post itself. What I want to talk about today is cloth napkins.

When we set the table we fold our napkins into pretty little bundles and set one at each place, like this:

Photo by P. Rickrode, 2018, Baer House Inn

Pretty huh? But something happens when people sit down. At some point during the meal, napkins go from this:

to this:

What the heck? I’m not serving tacos or crab legs or BBQ ribs or anything really that requires that you use your fingers to eat. Except the muffins or scones. So why in heaven’s name do the napkins end up this way?

Some of them are so bad I think perhaps at some point during the meal they snuck out and checked the oil in their car, using my napkin to wipe the dipstick. I understand that sometimes a bit of coffee may slosh over and that would be a good thing to use a napkin for, to clean up that spill, but goodness, sometimes the entire napkin looks like it’s been soaked in coffee. I have to use half a bottle of pre-wash stain remover spray on some of these babies.

Some have so many different colored spots on them I’m wondering if they’re supplementing what I’m serving for breakfast with something they’ve brought themselves. How can something, blue, brown, red, yellow, purple and green end up on one napkin? And for crying out loud, do people not know where their mouths are? Are they eating with their fingers? What’s up?

The absolute worst thing to get out of a napkin is – drum roll please – lipstick!! Lipstick is nearly impossible to scrub out of my napkins. Which brings up another question: Who puts on lipstick to walk downstairs to eat? Seems like a waste of makeup. After you finish eating seems like a better time to gloss up those lips to me, but whatever. I see a lot of lipstick on my napkins.

How do you folks use your napkins? Do you delicately wipe your mouth or do you use it as a cleaning rag? Do you appreciate a well-set table? Do you prefer cloth napkins over paper? Do you put on lipstick before you eat? Inquiring innkeepers want to know.

As always, thanks for visiting today. Your thoughts and suggestions are always appreciated.

Word of the Day:  Noumeon

Fun fact about me:  Here at the Baer House we launder and iron our own napkins.

Original post by Jansen Schmidt, May 2018. Photos courtesy P. Rickrode and Google Images.