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Dirty Laundry Never Felt So Good

Folks, we’re cutting it close.

If you recall — and even if you don’t, frankly; your possibly-faulty memory has little to do with what’s really going on here — our dryer went on the fritz over the weekend. On Monday morning, the missus and I stepped out to pick out a new dryer — and a new washer, too. Apparently, these things have to come in matched sets — like earrings, or tap shoes, or scarily-skinny Olsen girls. Who knew?

(And by the way, you can be pretty sure that you’ve hit rock-solid bottom when you’re sitting in the Best Buy parking lot on a wintry Monday morning, waiting for the goobers out front to finish their smokes and open the damned doors. No matter what circumstance may have landed you there, that’s a big fat ‘what the hell am I doing with my life?’ kind of moment. Trust me.)

Anyway, we found a washer and dryer that we liked — which is to say, that I was told that we liked — and set up delivery for Friday morning. Of course, the dizzying world of large appliance management being what it is, we can’t actually get the things installed until Saturday afternoon. The haulers nad the hooker-uppers drive different vans, or something. Who the hell can understand the arcane procedures of retail chains?

(Oh, and by the way again — how many of you saw ‘large appliance management’, and immediately thought:

‘What, like a shoe tree for Roseanne’s dildos?‘

Come on, now — show of hands. It’s okay; we’re all friends and perverts here. Don’t be shy.)

Anyway, barring any unforseen difficulties, we should be back in the sloshing and rinsing and tumble drying business by Saturday night. Meanwhile, though — and calling back to the first sentence, only seven paragraphs later — we’re cutting it close.

Because, as is always the way, we discovered that the dryer was broken by actually trying to use the dryer. Silly us! And once we got over the trauma of having fourteen dripping-wet towels draped over every flat surface in the house for three days, the true grimitude of the situation started to sink in.

(Unless you’d prefer grimminess, perhaps? Grimitatiousness? How does grimmitality grab you? Eh, just pick your fave and move on; you get the idea.)

You see, we’re not exactly ‘preemptive strike’ kinds of people, when it comes to laundry. If the undie drawer is full, then it’s not laundry day, no matter what the calendar says. And so, the laundry tends to pile up a bit, until the true essentials — boxers, clean socks, and other generally non-rewearable unmentionables — run low. So that ill-fated load of wet towels we started on Sunday night was just the tip of the laundry iceberg. There were a good four or five loads queued up after that, and they’re still sitting patiently in the basement, waiting their turns. Meanwhile, all the wife and I have done all week is wear more clothes, and use more towels to dry off after showers, and sleep on the only marginally ‘clean’ set of sheets that we have. I’m not sure what’s wrong with us, exactly — we just can’t seem to stop. It’s like a disease.

So now we’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Or more appropriately, the back of the closet, the top shelf of the armoire, and the dregs of the undie drawer. I think we’ll make it until Saturday, but it’s not going to be pretty, folks. Today, I wore a pair of jeans that I haven’t even seen in two years — frankly, they may have come with the house when we bought it. I can’t say for sure. Also, I’ve been wearing at least one article of clothing made of silk for the past forty-eight hours or so. Usually boxers. With hearts. Lord help me.

Of greater immediate physical concern — as opposed to the mental anguish that parading around in my novelty Valentine’s Day undies is causing — is that I’m down to my last pair of socks in the drawer. And this is Boston, in April — it’s pretty freaking cold out there, people. But tomorrow, I’m faced with a dilemma — rewear a pair of sockies that have been grubbing up against my feet and my shoes and my scandalous toes all day, or go without. And frankly, I’m leaning toward the latter, but it just pisses me off. I mean, why should I have to risk a bout of frosty toe-bite, just because Whirlpool can’t get their shit together and make a heating coil that works? Why do my piggies have to suffer?

(And actually, I don’t even know if it’s Whirlpool that makes our dryer; that’s just the first brand that came to mind. Honestly, I’ve got nothing against the Whirlpool folks in particular.

As a matter of fact, I support them whole-heartedly. Any company that decides to name itself after a place where wet, bikini-clad women might gather is okay in my book. I’d definitely buy their products. Or anything made by ‘Fort Lauderdale’, ‘Playboy Mansion’, or ‘Sex-Starved Cheerleader Camp’, for that matter. Hey, I can be swayed by a good marketing campaign; I’m only human.)

I suppose we could make an emergency trip to a laundromat — or, more likely, to some clothing store, to fricking buy more socks and undies. But now it’s turned into kind of a game — can we really make it for a whole week, when the laundry seemed so urgent at the time on Sunday? And to be honest, I hope we make it — I think it might shed a whole new light on our current clothes-washing routine. Why bother doing laundry when there are still three or four pairs of underwear left? Why wash, when a six-pack of tube socks is ninety-nine cents at Target? I can wear this rugby another couple of days, if it’ll just put off laundry day for a little while longer.

Yeah. This might be the best thing that’s ever happened to me, domestically speaking. This could be even better than the time the fridge went kaput, and I had to drink a case and a half of beer and eat three steaks in an afternoon. You can’t let that shit go to waste, man. And now… well, now I’m starting to kind of like these silk boxers. Maybe I’ll call Best Buy, and tell them to come next weekend, instead. Slickery!