reinje's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stinky Towels I know I haven�t said much about laundry yet, but that�s just because I haven�t gotten around to it yet � talking about it, I mean, not doing it!!! I don�t want you to think I�ve gotten slack or anything by not mentioning it. We are of the privileged minority here in New York City who actually has a washer/dryer unit in our apartment. Have you ever heard of such a thing? And I would wager a guess that if we didn�t have this unit at our disposal 24/7, I wouldn�t do laundry nearly as often as I do it now, which feels like every hour of every day. So I am one lucky dame, to have this unit here in our apartment. And lest I give you the wrong impression and you think I am just willy-nilly doing extra-large loads full of soap with nary a pair of underpants in it, let me remind you of the fact that I am really fairly careless in the personal hygiene department, combined with the fact that I don�t sweat much (visibly, at least), and that I was raised in Canada. Let me explain that last part. Canadians are more or less European, dare we say French, when it comes to how often they wash and wear clothes. Like, it wasn�t until junior high that I realized the stigma of wearing the same shirt two days in a row. And I am fairly certain that my sister and I were in possession of, oh, probably several pairs of pants that never saw the inside of a washing machine. I�m totally serious. Folks don�t sweat up there on account of the cold and all. And we conserve our resources. Yes we do. Anyway, for the first 6 years of our arrangement, it fell upon Him to do the laundry, which was just fine by me. I mean, He is a lot better at it than I am. Like the guy actually matches his socks every time. Right foot paired with left foot. Far be it for me to judge� Lately, though�well, to be completely frank with you, probably within the stretch of time that I have taken over in the laundry department, His towel has started to stink. When we purchased these towels in the Year of Our Lord 2000, they were supposed to last till pretty much Infinity. Of course, that�s not what they said at the store where we bought them, but the price spoke for itself, if you know what I mean. Anyway, his towel has this Je�stank to it, which in the language of my people can be roughly translated as �funk.� The towel is a stealthy son of a gun and, after washing, can be possessed of a mildly pleasant odor, fresh even. But use it once and BAM! It�ll have you �fe�dreiet sich auf en fortz em Schneppeld�ak,� or as Grandpa Art used to say, �twisting like a fart in a handkerchief� to see where that awful smell is coming from. So I went online to see what could be done, and believe it or not, there are, surprisingly, all kinds of people who have loads of time and stinky towels and nothing to do but sit around all day and grunse about it on the Internet. Not that I�m judging or anything. This one woman seemed to have a sure-fire way about her, and she suggested adding half a cup of baking soda to the wash to take care of the smell, so I followed her advice. Only instead of baking soda I somehow added starch to the water and let me tell you, those towels were stiff as a board when I took them out of the dryer. Boy, was I ever embarrassed! I mean, when you pride yourself on all the practicing and cleaning you do, thinking it�s all adding up to making you a better person, and then something like this happens. Jauma lied. From where I come from, you don�t just throw away a perfectly good towel, even if it does stink to high heaven. Most of the time, you just pretend it doesn�t stink or give it to your guests or something. But I�m a couple of steps ahead of you. You see, what I did is I took a felt marker and carefully marked an �S� on the tag so that I�ll know which towel to avoid. It�s brilliant! And probably by the time we get around to rotating the towels and He uses it, I�ll be long gone at Opera Camp so I won�t have to smell it. Using my noodle, and other starches, Reinje 3:00 p.m. - 2005-05-04 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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