I was a tomboy as a kid. If there was a tree, I climbed it. If there was a bug, I caught it. I kept snails as pets. I was practically allergic to pink, and I would only wear dresses under duress.

I still don’t like pink or dresses. Until recently when I found a little black dress at Goodwill for a price I couldn’t pass up, I didn’t even own a dress. I do own a few skirts, but I only wear them to church or when the temperature gets above 120 degrees. (Or occasionally on laundry day if nothing else is clean.)

I do, however, like saving money. If there’s a reusable option for a consumable product, I’m inclined to choose it if it’s roughly comparable to the disposable option. I’ve been a cloth napkin user since I moved out of my parents’ house in my early 20s. I don’t buy paper plates or cups, and I carry a set of silverware in my purse so that I don’t have to use plastic cutlery when I do takeout. But the one thing I couldn’t bring myself to do was use handkerchiefs. It felt unsanitary.

Last week, I decided to get over it. I had an old scarf that had developed two giant holes in the middle. I cut it up into squares and became the owner of 38 raggedy-edged recycled handkerchiefs. The scarf was dark blue, light blue, dark purple, and black. Because of the design, each handkerchief was unique. I liked the bold colors – no frilly grandma lace for me.

It’s the height of allergy season, so I had my chance to test out my reclaimed hankies. They were more comfortable on my nose than tissues, and they held up to cat vomit as well. I was sold. However, it turns out that 38 isn’t quite enough to get through a week. That surprised me. I figured I would need no more than a dozen at most.

I took to the internet to get some more. To my surprise, handkerchiefs are heavily gendered when shopping. Apparently it matters whether people deposit mucus onto frilly pink and white lace or bold blue and green plaid. Men’s handkerchiefs are also twice as large, to handle man-snot, I suppose. And in a reversal of the typical pink tax, women’s handkerchiefs are considerably cheaper.

After going back and forth and wondering if I should just get men’s handkerchiefs and cut them in half to make them a less ridiculous size, or wondering if I could buy a nice neutral fabric and pay a friend to make some for me, I finally decided that blowing my nose on floral fabric won’t do me any harm. So I bought a 60 pack of lady-hankies.

They arrived yesterday. While I’m not thrilled about the designs, they’re not as bad as they looked online. They’re white cotton squares with some flowers on the fabric. Perfectly functional, and there’s no reason I need to enjoy the aesthetics of an item in order for it to be useful.

I have a mason jar on my living room end table with the handkerchiefs folded in such a way that they pop out of the top like paper tissues. And I keep a few in my purse. I’m kind of looking forward to the day I need to wipe my nose at the archery range. Shoot a bullseye and then pull out some frilly cloth to take care of the allergies. Keep everyone’s heads spinning from the juxtaposition.

I tried to come up with a spiritual point for this post, and there’s probably one lurking in the background somewhere, but I can’t think of it at the moment. But now that I have 98 handkerchiefs (38 reclaimed ones from the old scarf and 60 from the multi-pack I bought), if we ever have another apocalyptic paper shortage like 2020, at least I’ll have something to blow my nose on. So I guess this is a blog post about food storage!