Tuesday, November 13, 2007

To bleach, or not to bleach...

When I arrived home in Ohio, one of the first conversations I heard between my mother and father was something about how some articles of my father's clothing were getting bleached or about bleach spots appearing on random things. Was I observant enough to pick up on the foreshadowing? You bet not!
The day I was leaving to return to Utah, I washed an old sweatshirt of mine along with a new prized possession - an NYC sweatshirt I bought to replace an old one I loved so much I had to get a replica. Imagine my disappointment when I pulled my babies from the washer (along with a pair of pajama pants and a pair of exercise pants) only to find them newly adorned with bleach spots! My mom had been bleaching a shirt on top of the washer and hadn't washed it off before I had set my clothes in the area. I threw the shirts in the trashbag while my mom watched me, waiting for the same fume that emits from my ears when McMappy is around. Lucky for us all, I have no temper about other things at all. I simply said, "Don't worry, Mom, I'm not mad! I'm sad, but getting mad isn't going to bring my sweatshirt back."
I think my mom had other ideas. I walked by the trashbag later only to see my massacred babies had been removed. Weird, I thought.
You see, while I was waiting at the airport, I got a call something like this:
"What color were your sweatshirts before the bleach?"
"Purple/Pink and Light blue/Navy blue/White. Why?"
"Well, now we have a Pink/Pink and a light blue/lighter blue/white."
"What???" (confusion here)
"Well, I wanted to see if I soaked the whole shirt in bleach if it would do anything. I don't think they look bad, the blue one actually still looks cute."
"You bleached them again?!?"
Well, yeah, I mean, since you were going to throw them away, I figured it couldn't hurt to try..."
"MOM, enough with the bleach!!!! You are on bleaching restriction! You are addicted!"
"Well, I'll leave them on your bed and you can look at them at Christmas time and tell me if you still want them."

I am hoodie cursed. Another sweatshirt I bought in Maine shrunk from a Large to a chipmunk size. Then, I "stole" one of my mother's NYC hoodies (and told her only to discover she didn't even know it was hers!). I washed it when I returned to Utah and realized it was one of the articles of clothing she had never worn, because it too shrunk from about an extra large to toddler sized. WHY?!? Will the gods of the hoodies please take mercy on me?!?

No comments: