Weekend Plans Post: A Shirt Worth Stealing
One finds one’s simple pleasures where one can in these trying times.
Last week, Maribou got a new couple of t-shirts from the Amazon and I threw them downstairs onto the “to do” pile to wait for Friday/Saturday. When sorting the pile the light green one got mis-sorted into my stuff.
Now the way the laundry works at our place is that there are about 7 different piles.
1. Light Delicates
2. Dark Delicates
3. Fuzzies (during summer months, these are scarce enough to sort into 1 or 2… in the winter, they are their own category)
4. Jaybird’s Stuff
5. Bedsheets
6. Quilts/Blankets
7. Towels
The main difference is that the delicates and fuzzies require light washing and very light drying.
My stuff gets the “beaten on rocks after being washed in the creek” treatment and then thrown into the dryer on “jet engine” with a fabric softener sheet. Hey, it’s jeans and thick socks and undies and long sleeve shirts, mostly. They can handle it.
Given this present crisis, Maribou has a lot fewer outfits being worn and a lot more fuzzies/pajamas. As such, the green shirt being thrown into my stuff was a legitimate oversight on my part and I was prepared to apologize and re-wash it to get the fabric softener out of it. But then, I figured… hey, I might as well wear it first. I mean, I put it through the wash and everything, might as well use it before having to wash it again.
Anyway, after a few hours of wearing it, I went to Maribou to come clean.
“I’ve got good news and bad news.”
“Uh-oh. Does it involve work or politics?”
“No, it does not.”
“Okay.”
“I accidentally washed your green shirt” (I tugged on it) “and it went through with my stuff and it got fabric softener.”
“What’s the good news?”
“The good news is that I have a new shirt that I really like.”
“GOSH DANG IT! I DIDN’T EVEN WEAR IT YET!”
It’s this shirt here, by the way. Seriously, it is 100% cotton, thick cotton rings, it comes in 3X, and it has a WIDE variety of colors to pick from. Like, more than 30. Whether you’re a winter, spring, summer, or autumn, you’re going to find your “Color Me Beautiful” season. (We have a couple more coming in the mail as we speak, as a matter of fact. I’m a “denim” man, myself, though I think I’d look pretty good in “vineyard”. “Island Reef” would make me look washed out.)
And that is the big plan for this weekend. That and Ansible.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is “Icarus”, taken by the author.)
My big dream is that there is some number of these shirts I can buy that will result in them not getting moved into Jaybird’s part of the laundry. (I’m really *allergic* to fabric softener, y’see. Like hives allergic. And he washes while I put away. So he has this foolproof acquisition tactic. I want my dang shirt back. Not enough to buy colors he hates…. yet…. but I’ll go there if I have to….)
Though since I’m an incrementalist, rather than defaulting to asymmetric response, my plans for the weekend don’t actually involve buying 400 shirts. I’ll probably read. Maybe I’ll clean up the library. *shrug*Report
The first real row K and I had was over laundry. You see, in 7th grade Mom went back to work, so I was taught how to do laundry (wash whites like this; colors like this; jeans like this; don’t touch those, I’ll do them myself. Fold thusly, put here and here and here). So the first time I did our laundry I was informed that I did not, in fact, know how to do laundry. Que the Benny Hill music…anyway, détente was reached and while I will sometimes do a load here and there, she washed and I fold and put away.
On the tshirt fabric front, a few years back I discovered that a 92% cotton/8%spandex blend is the sweet spot for tees that I wear under collared shirts for work. They’re soft and a bit stretchy and I like that.Report
Early in our marriage, my wife and I shared laundry duty. One week she washed a brand new green cotton table cloth with my once worn khakis. After that, she was relieved and I took over.
Pulled pork with friends Saturday. Sunday is gonna be football.Report
The Marchmaine personal history of laundry would scandalize all of you… so I’ll have to save it for my post-mortem memoirs.
We finally finished our Screen Porch remodel… my wife has claimed it as her attached she-shed… now my duty is to allocate funds to the decorating and furnishing thereof – but more importantly – to not have a helpful opinion on said furnishing or decorating, which is much harder. I may already have failed.Report
OK, I ordered a shirt. Review coming forthwith.Report
You won’t regret it. (Wash it and use a dryer sheet!)Report
I’m a line dryer.Report
Laundry here is doing right now. (Towels are in the dryer, cloth masks and other items are in the wash right now).
Mostly my plans this weekend are sleeping. I am BEAT. On top of teaching three classes (one, a graduate level class that is hard tot each) I had to re-record a lot of audio for the labs they videoed me doing (for a VR online lab thing, they got a grant for – would have been more ideal earlier in the pandemic, but whatever). Apparently their microphone had something wrong with it and they didn’t catch it right away, so I had to listen to myself on headphones from the “bad” recording and basically repeat what I said for the “good” recording. Mercifully they mostly only had videoed my hands and not my mouth so lip synching was not an issue, that would have been harder for a non professional like me)
I am hoping next week is maybe a little less busyReport
My go-to t-shirt from Amazon is here. Not for the thick-necked: the collar is small relative to the dimensions of the rest of the shirt, and maintains that size for years.Report