The environment, for one thing. Even though disposable paper napkins are made from trash wood and paper, it has to be made into a slurry, bleached and cleaned, formed and dried. All of that takes enormous amounts of electricity and water, not to mention the chemicals used.

They are then packaged in plastic (we know the evils of plastic) and shipped across the country, eating up yet more energy. When you buy disposable napkins, you use them one time and then you throw them away. The trash man comes and takes them out of your sight - packed into a plastic bag and dumped and tamped into a landfill where they can't decompose.

Besides the environment? Let's talk about your budget. Paper napkins are cheap, aren't they? But they're not as cheap as cloth napkins because you have to buy them over and over and over... and over again. As a matter of fact, you never get past the buying them stage. You will always need more.

For a family of four, eating three meals a day, you will need twelve disposable napkins each day. Multiply that times 365 and you get 4,380 paper napkins in a year! What do you pay for them? Two dollars a hundred? Less? More? Whatever it is, it's too much. Take the money and invest in some sewing thread and a needle and cut some squares from old shirts or sheets or whatever you have, hem them and take your napkin money to the bank instead.

If you don't want to sew your own napkins, buy them ready made and you'll still save money. If everyone has their own napkin, they don't need to be laundered after every meal. Just do it when they're dirty.

Just for fun: At one dollar per hundred for paper napkins, you're paying out $43.80 each year to throw something in the trash. Do your own math.

How about ambience? That's something people don't talk about when it comes to disposable items. I don't know about you, but I'm worth sitting down to a plate of food and using a real cloth napkin. People I care about are worth the faint elegance of using a cloth napkin.

They can make you feel rich even when you're not and they can make you feel elegant and sophisticated under the right circumstances. I've never seen a piece of paper that made me feel that way (unless it was a check for a lot of money).

One more thing: Health. Don't ever think that your trash wood or recycled paper, mixed with water, bleached, drained, cleaned, rolled and dried napkin is healthier than my home washed, sun bleached real cotton napkin. No chemicals that I don't know about, no heaven-knows-where-it-came-from recycled materials, no plastic encasement. Just plain, clean washed, and maybe even ironed cloth napkins.

Care to eat?