Laundry Lessons

I learned a lesson yesterday. Always, always, always check your husband's pockets before doing laundry. I have gotten some interesting items out of the washing machine over the years, including a blackened, mummified-looking frog that 8-year-old Tom couldn't remember where he left - and yes, it was alive when he put it in his pocket. Instead of the sadness I expected when I showed it to him, all he said was, "So that's where I put him!"

Yesterday's haul wasn't quite as exciting, but it was a haul, nonetheless. I washed Jerry's coveralls, and there are just way too many pockets in those things. I netted a tube of Chapstick, a container of Campho-Phenique, paper clips, a store receipt, nails, and what seemed like a million itsy-bitsy screws. The sheer number of the screws was bad enough, but their size enabled them to stick into all the little holes in the bottom and side of the wash basket. Their heads were just big enough not to let them fall through. While it looked quite festive, it was not fun plucking them out a couple at a time. Much like his son with the frog incident, instead of acknowledging that he had left all these things in his coveralls, Jerry snatched the tube of Chapstick from the pile of goodies I had removed from the washer and said, "So that's where I left that!" Lesson learned.