Today I ordered towels. And I did a lot of worrying. It’s what I do best. Practice makes perfect, as my mother used to say.

I wasn’t worried about the towels. (That’s a lie – I was concerned that they were going to be rougher than described). I was concerned about the state of the world. But since there’s little I can do about that, and there’s a lot I can do about frayed bath towels, I ordered fresh ones. And it felt great to fix a problem.

I have a friend who likes to order candles. Not for lighting, but mood. To me this seems out of hand. But she says she finds it a consolation; and the endless choice of scents, a diversion. So who am I to judge? And, I will admit, I too am a sucker for comfort. There’s nothing better than wrapping yourself into a bath sheet after a shower. Though it is necessary not to think of those out there who can’t shower at all.

Not thinking of this is hard to do. Especially when the numbers of people who can’t shower multiples daily.

Sometimes I do feel that ignorance is bliss, that it would be far better not to know that there are so many who don’t have the luxury of a shower with a good, folded towel waiting at the other end.

A few years ago, for a period, I tested extending the number of days I went without showering to show solidarity. My husband had a problem with this. “What the hell are you doing?”he said when I explained my rationale. “Do you honestly think your not showering is a solution?”

He may have had a point because frankly I was having trouble living with myself with the smell that could never be masked by dabs of essential oils.

So what is a person to do? The fact is, I’m a lousy global citizen. I never should have purchased the towels. But don’t we all occasionally succumb?

It could have been worse, right? I could be the type to sneak around in some dark corner of the web. Instead, I was in a bright, highly trafficked space. And I was efficiently performing my duty as an American consumer.

That’s a great thing, isn’t it? Keeping the economy going, providing jobs. There have to be a few workers out there who would thank me for my towel purchase.

It’s not enough. I know. But what can I do? I’m open to suggestions.

My friend says to try candles for the anxiety, there are a lot less ethical issues in that sphere than with towels. But I’m not a candle person. It may very well be that the world is divided into two types – candle people and towel people. So, there’s nothing I can really do.

I looked for an answer to this dilemma at a bookstore, walking blocks to one of the few that has survived. I spent hours surveying the shelves for authors who have weighed in on how to be a good global citizen and the ethics of ordering towels, but could not find any who specifically addressed this. I also talked to customers who had wandered in from the cold in search of answers to their own questions, and listened to their thoughts on towels. There was no consensus.

It’s always unbearable to exit a bookstore without an answer. I’m used to carrying out a stack knowing that at least one title will allay my worries. But this time I did not see even one helpful book.

I did see writing journals of different sizes on a corner table in the back, their blank pages waiting for someone to set pen to them. So, I selected one with a beautiful floral cover in the hope that I might work out the answer to whether my towel purchase makes me a bad person.

Tonight I stayed up late, hunched over my journal with a pen between my teeth, committed to examining the topic from different angles, occasionally putting pen to page, until my husband turned off the light on me. He was annoyed. But in his own way he was proud. He said, “See, there are not just candle or towel people, but journal people too.”

The compliment was of little comfort. I found my racing heart prevented sleep. And then, as I tensed my toes and released them to relax, I became aware that my bedsheets, at the end, were torn. I instantly felt better knowing there was another problem I could fix.

– Karen Regen Tuero