Bring back the good towels, HFS

You might have noticed the new paper towels in our residence halls. They were quietly phased in over the past month and are now the Housing Food and Services (HFS) standard in hand-drying toiletry.

The trouble is they're no good. Not only are they less effective at hand-drying, they also un-ply in your hands and tear off in groups. Many students are forced to use several of them to get the job done, which constitutes a waste HFS may not have anticipated.

It's bad enough that the paper towels already plum run out in the mornings. Now we have to make do with the most-frugal paper towels money can buy, short of that brown rubbish in the HUB that rubs like cardboard. Residents of the dorms already pay increasing room and board rates, and it is difficult for them to see their amenities reduced to this level of cheapness.

It would be nice for HFS to show a little class and take a small jab to the budget, if only to maintain the semblance of a top-drawer university housing enterprise. The halls are well-worn to begin with, and little things like luxuriant paper towels make the difference between venerable and ramshackle.

HFS needs to change its mind and display to us a bit of munificence ere our wet hands go cold.

In the meantime, take a bit of reminder about the plenty we all enjoy without a second thought. At the UW, we can gripe about good towels being replaced by bad ones and call the grievance legitimate -- and it is legitimate. That's the way the world ought to be, and would that everyone's problems were as inconsequential and fleeting. That this is not so is a testament to our continued need for a holiday such as tomorrow.

In that spirit, today this editorial board is thankful that The Daily is usually not mistaken for a paper towel. And if you actually enjoy The Daily, then our thankfulness is doubled. Send us an e-mail and let us know.

Have a happy Thanksgiving.