Originally published August 14, 2016.

My 21 year old son popped home from college yesterday for a few hours and took a shower before heading back to campus. I walked into his bedroom this morning, fully expecting to find a wet towel lying on the floor, because finding wet towels on bedroom floors is nothing new around here. In fact, it’s a critical part of the mother-son ritual in our home. My son announces he is about to take a shower and I say, “hang your towel on the hook in your bathroom when you’re done,” or occasionally, “throw your dirty towel in the laundry,” but what I never say is, “leave your wet towel on the floor in your bedroom so it stinks up the carpet, okay?” And yet, after nearly every shower taken in my home by this fellow (and his older brother) I find a wet towel on the floor. Or worse, on the bed. And it annoys me. Every. Single. Time.

What, I ask myself at the sight of those wet towels strewn haphazardly across places they don’t belong, is so difficult about hanging a wet towel on a hook? Or tossing it in a laundry basket? My sons are athletes. They lift ridiculous amounts of weight to achieve peak performance and yet a wet towel is far too heavy to carry back to the bathroom and hang on the hook.

I don’t get it. I really don’t.

Anyhow, predictably and in keeping with family tradition, I asked him to hang his wet towel on the hook in the bathroom yesterday so, of course, when I walked into his room this morning, I fully expected to find it on the floor. Or the bed. Likewise I fully expected to feel annoyed at the sight of it just like I do every single time it happens. Every. Single. Time.

Only this time I smiled.

Now, don’t start cheering and getting all excited like after 21 years he finally learned to hang his wet towel on the hook. He didn’t. There it was, wet and festering, stinking up the carpet from the night before just like always. Only this time I didn’t get annoyed. This time the sight of that wet towel on the floor reminded me – like the three little words I once found surreptitiously etched into the underside of his wooden desk – Jared was here. And THAT makes me smile.

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