Well I finally broke down and purchased a new sheet set and comforter the other day. Big Lots had a great sale going on Thanksgiving day, so when I got off the air, I carefully guided my trusty Trailblazer down Rt. 68 to the High Point location of Big Lots (only a hop from my house). Suprisingly, I did not have to wade through a mass of people to find what I was looking for. In fact, believe it or not, most people had the day off...strange, certainly.
However, I did come out victoriously...a 600 thread count sheet set for only $25...oh yes...and a comforter set for only $40...
Friends, I was elated.
Until I got them home.
I promply tossed the sheets in the washing machine, because I had an important meeting with a turkey in Winston-Salem in mere hours. So, while the sheets were tossing around in a mixture of Gain and hot/cold (some call it warm water, I do not), I carefully ripped open the comforter set (which, by the way, is one of the very few sets I could find that looked as if it belonged on a man's bed.
Much to my desmay, however, the comforter, pillow shams (whatever those are) and bed skirt (a skirt on a single man's bed? come on!) had an aroma of...brace yourself...doo doo.
Yes, doo doo...
So, in a torrent of frustration, I clicked back into panic mode...uncertain if the doo doo smell would erupt into a green fog that would claim it's prey on everything I had in the house...my clothes, couch, decorative saxophone lamp I made last holiday season...I was clueless...so I thought of the next logical plan of action.
I would wash it...yeah, washing would eliminate the doo doo smell, right?
Frantickly covering my nose and searching across the vast doo doo ridden land of my new bed clothes, I found the 'cleaning instructions' tag.
Not limpir...I can't read Spanish...Cara and I barely passed that class, even with the 'group efforts' we implemented back a few years ago.
I flipped the tag over, back to my native language, only to read in complete black and white...and as if someone were to punch me straight in the biscuits (thanks for the new terminology, Bojangles commercial), there I saw with my two semi-blind eyes...
DRY CLEAN ONLY.
Are you kidding me.
"Maybe it will air out," I told myself, quickly searching for my official '93-1 The Wolf' jacket, hand on the door so my nose wouldn't fall prey to the lingering smell of doo doo.
So I fired back up the trusty Trailblazer, and headed due west, to the promise land of Winston-Salem, where I knew life would be much better...the smell of doo doo would certainly be replaced with that of turkey, dressing, mashed taters, and all the other southern accoutramont (I think I made that word up).
So today, I still have this smelly bed spread airing out in the spare bed room/studio B...
I came to the conclusion this morning that it was going to be either me, or the doo doo smell. I opted for the smell, considering that I still have 6 months remaining in the lease here.
"Maybe washing it really, really gently would do it some good," I convinced myself, about thirty minutes ago.
I mustered up the strength and confidence to gather the bed spread, shams (still, no idea what these are for), and other bits and pieces and headed for my large capacity Whirlpool.
Alright...so the bed spread is a bit too large for the capacity...however, I found that if you cram it really, really hard into the tub, the lid will close, for the most part. Sure, I can sit on the lid...I'm not that busy this morning.
As the washer filled with a mixture of Gain and hot/cold (never warm, mind you) water, I was feeling as if I had won the war.
That was, until the clutch and electric motor of the Whirlpool kicked in.
"Click, click, click...clunk...click..."
"That's all you got?!" I shouted.
Yes, my West Virginia upbringing was coming unrooted once again...
I began to panic...John Roberts hooked me up with this great washer/dryer combination back a year-or-so ago, and I did not want to lose these pearly white marvels of clean!
I jumped off the Whirlpool was quickly and as gracefully (which, by the way, isn't that graceful) as I could and removed the now soaking wet, 300 pound mess of doo doo smell and Gain, and ran it to 'Bathroom B'...threw it into the backup bathtub, and beagn to size up the situation.
I feel defeated...so now I reflect over a pot of Maxwell House (with two extra scoops, just to put things back into reflection), realzing that if indeed I did not have to work, and I did not see the Big Lots flyer in the paper while at work, and I had somewhere to go /after/ work, I would have never been in this situation in the first place. I mean, I have been semi satisfied with my measly 400 thread count sheets I've had since I lived in Charleston...but NO! I am a dreamer, and one who loves to always take risks, and hopefully bring my life to a whole other level...
I'm certainly at a new level here in my two bed, two bath, third-floor unit here in High Point, NC...a level that includes a backup bathtub full of a smelly, wet mess of a bed spread.
Ya know, come to think of it, the bed spread looked kinda lame in the first place.
