Dishtowels
When I worked at the Pizza Place there was an endless supply of thin white cotton towels. After use they would be tossed in a hamper and swapped out with a weekly laundry service. One day I asked Jefe for a dish towel. “Deesh towels!” he mocked my queer midwestern vocabulary in his Mexican accent. To Jefe, these “dish towels” were rags.
I was just thinking about it, and back home we had a “rag bag” in the laundry closet, which was populated by torn or stained old sheets, pillowcases, shirts, and the occasional underwear.  I guess if you’re running a restaurant, you want to set a certain standard for rags. Though, I have heard that in developing countries, underwear is considered an acceptible rag for restaurant use.
Nowadays, I buy cheap little dishtowels by the dozen from the big box or hardware store. I’m too snooty for a rag bag: defunct textiles are retired to the trash. Somewhere in the midwest, the ancestors are weeping over my flamboyant lifestyle.
