A Foggy Day and Wet Clothes

I'm sorry to disappoint you, but the fizz in the Fresca was just about the high point of my week!

Yesterday I did the laundry and there was not anything exciting there except that one of the washing machines has a glitch. It is a good glitch, because (shhh, it's our little secret) it will start with only one quarter rather than the whole dollar that the sign recommends you to feed into the thing. I was glad of that because when it came to drying, I didn't do so well.

The little laundry room (6 washers and 6 dryers) was a busy place yesterday, and folks were pushing and shoving and threatening to throw clothes out for their turn at the dryers. I managed to get dryers for my three loads, but they were not all next to each other.

Now you have to realize that the day I turned 43 a deficiency of certain hormones started a mental fog rolling in, and it has never lifted. Some days it is denser than others, but I'm always having to go with my headlights on dim now. (It's a good thing because I don't think they could be bright anymore if I wanted them to.)

Anyway, all dryers look alike to me, and after I got my loads started, I couldn't remember which dryers contained my clothes. So, I did the little open the door and peek thing. I forced my brain to remember--first, second, and fourth dryers, starting from the right end.

All was well and I went to the camper to wait out the 45 minutes until the machines were finished melting and wrinkling my nicer clothes. Thank goodness they leave the towels and jeans good and damp! At least everything is not ruined!

I was not going to let anybody throw my clothes out, so I returned to the laundry a little early. I also wanted to hang Rick's work clothes while they were still hot. One man and a woman were eyeing my dryers like a couple of buzzards ready to jump on the last morsel of roadkill. "We thought you would never get back!" The guy was standing there with a Bounce sheet in his hand.

I smarted off and told him I took a nap while I was back at the camper. Then I pulled open the dryer door to start hanging Rick's pants. Well. What'd ya know? I must have forgotten to start the dryer back after I peeked in on them--almost forty--um--humph. Sheezzzz! It was that mental fog again!

You know the timer just keeps on ticking down time even if the machine is not tumbling. So there I was with an expired dryer full of wet clothes and Mr. and Ms. Gotta-Dry-Mine-Now racing to see which one of them could shove their stuff in that little cold opening first!

Sometimes it is hard to grin, but you just have to. So I did. I decided to be cool about this--I nonchalantly pushed the start button and the tub began to turn. Good thing I came back a few minutes early! There was just a couple of minutes remaining on the timer, so I left it going while I tended to the other two loads.

As soon as I emptied dryer number one, I had to duck to get out of the way of the Bounce sheet and an armload of wet socks. I don't know who got dryer number two, I couldn't bear to watch.

When I was finished folding and hanging the first two loads I turned back to dryer number three which was being closely guarded by the woman, who, by the way, was still in need of a dryer. It was no longer running.

At the speed of light I thought through my options. (I may be driving in the fog, but I do it as fast as I can.) With that hard-to-muster grin on my face, I pulled four more quarters out of my pocket, put them in the coin slots and gave the plunger a shove, then pushed the button. She looks just as far over the hill as I am. Surely she will understand mental fog, I thought.

I explained to her that the load was not dry because--well... She didn't understand as well as I had hope.

"You didn't start it?" She was frowning, and suddenly I wanted a Fresca--and a nap. I headed back to the camper to hide out for another 45 minutes.

I thought I'd never get all the laundry done yesterday. It seems like it took me all day. I think it had something to do with the fog.