What Have We Learned Here Today?
Well, I have some good news and some bad news.
The bad news is that I got back home from a weekend away where I got an average of five hours of sleep a night and then thought, "Gee, while I'm not at all in my right mind, I should definitely do some laundry." Then I ate a bag of Fritos and let a red Crayola melt all over every last piece of clothing I'd put into the dryer. My favorite jeans, Jackson's two new pairs of school pants. The inside of the dryer a striped, waxy pink. It was all too much to comprehend. I had to go sit down.
Then I took a nap.
Groggily, I went to pick up Jackson from school. He got in the back with Cookie and Peewee and I said, "I have some bad news. I forgot to check your pockets and I accidentally washed your red crayon and it, like, tie-dyed a whole load of clothes."
"My favorite red crayon? The one I brought from school? That I won for guessing how many crayons were in the estimating jar?"
Oh, dear.
"That was my favorite crayon!" Buh, buh, buh!
"I promised it I'd never let anything happen to it!" *sob*
"It was so --" *gasp* "-- special to me!"
"We can get you another one," I said, stupidly. Stupid, insane, absurd mother.
"There will never be another crayon like MY! RED! CRAYON!" Buh-huh-huuuuuu.
Five minutes later we got home and parked in the garage. I got into the back seat and hugged him and wiped all the tears off his face, my lord so many tears, it was like he'd shampooed with Visine. Actually, I felt like he was starting to milk it a little, but you know, I'd been gone for a few days, he was allowed. After a few minutes he calmed down.
"I loved my red crayon," he said.
"I know," I said. "Want a piggyback ride into the house?"
He got inside and indulged in a little more moping, and then he said, "Where's the laundry basket?" I opened the laundry closet and showed him where I'd abandoned it. He burst out laughing.
"Look at your white pants!" he cackled.
As I write this I am soaking the whole ruined load with a gallon each of every stain formula laundry soap in the solar system.
But the good news is, I found my little camera! I got back to LAX and I was digging through all my bags looking for my iPod so I'd have some music for the drive home, and I opened up a pocket in my purse -- you know, the pocket that usually holds my little camera? And there was my camera. Yeah. I'd been carrying it around for weeks going, "Damn, I wish I had my camera."
So what have we learned here today? Besides check your pockets? Nothing, that's it! Check your pockets, folks! CHECK YOUR FUCKING POCKETS.
The bad news is that I got back home from a weekend away where I got an average of five hours of sleep a night and then thought, "Gee, while I'm not at all in my right mind, I should definitely do some laundry." Then I ate a bag of Fritos and let a red Crayola melt all over every last piece of clothing I'd put into the dryer. My favorite jeans, Jackson's two new pairs of school pants. The inside of the dryer a striped, waxy pink. It was all too much to comprehend. I had to go sit down.
Then I took a nap.
Groggily, I went to pick up Jackson from school. He got in the back with Cookie and Peewee and I said, "I have some bad news. I forgot to check your pockets and I accidentally washed your red crayon and it, like, tie-dyed a whole load of clothes."
"My favorite red crayon? The one I brought from school? That I won for guessing how many crayons were in the estimating jar?"
Oh, dear.
"That was my favorite crayon!" Buh, buh, buh!
"I promised it I'd never let anything happen to it!" *sob*
"It was so --" *gasp* "-- special to me!"
"We can get you another one," I said, stupidly. Stupid, insane, absurd mother.
"There will never be another crayon like MY! RED! CRAYON!" Buh-huh-huuuuuu.
Five minutes later we got home and parked in the garage. I got into the back seat and hugged him and wiped all the tears off his face, my lord so many tears, it was like he'd shampooed with Visine. Actually, I felt like he was starting to milk it a little, but you know, I'd been gone for a few days, he was allowed. After a few minutes he calmed down.
"I loved my red crayon," he said.
"I know," I said. "Want a piggyback ride into the house?"
He got inside and indulged in a little more moping, and then he said, "Where's the laundry basket?" I opened the laundry closet and showed him where I'd abandoned it. He burst out laughing.
"Look at your white pants!" he cackled.
As I write this I am soaking the whole ruined load with a gallon each of every stain formula laundry soap in the solar system.
But the good news is, I found my little camera! I got back to LAX and I was digging through all my bags looking for my iPod so I'd have some music for the drive home, and I opened up a pocket in my purse -- you know, the pocket that usually holds my little camera? And there was my camera. Yeah. I'd been carrying it around for weeks going, "Damn, I wish I had my camera."
So what have we learned here today? Besides check your pockets? Nothing, that's it! Check your pockets, folks! CHECK YOUR FUCKING POCKETS.
40 Comments:
Empty, as usual. Sigh.
We've had four loads of crayons around here - green, purple, brown, and red. They tend to be restaurant crayons he tucks in his pocket after dinner, so they're ones he's not too emotionally attached to.
The bad news is that clothing will never be the same. Because I have no shame, I wear green spotted blue underwear. The rest was disposed of. The good news is that the dryer will not leech the crayon on subsequent loads. First time, I tried to clean the drum. Useless, but needless as well.
I do understand, so many times over.
I actually took some Soft Soap to the drum with a scrubby sponge and it mostly came clean, although the next load of clothes will probably come out covered in pink Soft Soap scum.
I wanted to say something along the lines of 'check your pockets' when I read about your lost camera, because I lost my dead grandfather's precious Minox B on a trans-Pacific flight only to have it almost annoyingly reappear in the very same carry-on bag, like, a year later after I'd written sad, begging letters to Japan Airlines' lost and found and everything. Dumbass (me, I mean, not you. Wait. Also you -- but lucky both of us).
There's actually a product called Goo Gone - I used to use it to remove labels on books when I worked at a library - that supposedly works like a charm. I've heard that WD-40 works just as well. Basically, apply to one side, let sit, apply to the other side, let sit, scrub the hell out of both sides with something like Dawn or Joy dishwashing liquid, and then wash the whole thing in hot water.
If that doesn't work, google tells me that Oxyclean + Spray 'n Wash + Tide will do the trick. Good luck!
It's not too late for the spin cycle on this ... tell the boy that his favorite crayon/friend lives on, indefinitely, on his school pants and, perhaps, your previously fave jeans. Why, he can now proudly wear his crayon/friend and have him with him wherever he goes. His crayon/friend hasn't died but reincarnated. It's a Valentine's Day gift, really...
Best of luck.
Sometimes Simple Green takes crayon out.
At our house it was entire pack of unearthly green gum.
I still haven't cleaned the dryer and it was over a year ago. I figure eventually it will chip off.
I think what we've learned is that Jackson goes to a cheap-ass school. A red crayon? For guessing how many crayons were in the estimating jar? Not even a whole pack?
It sucks to be a kid.
Who ever thought there could be such emotional attachment to wax?
Great post!
I actually did the exact same thing about 100 years ago and managed to ruin the white oxford uniforms I had to wear to the job I had at the time. The job paid so poorly that I couldn't even AFFORD to buy new white shirts to replace the ones that now had pinkish wax all over them, and so I quit. I hated that fucking job, and that melting crayon was the best thing that ever happened to me.
Jules
House of Jules
In the laundry section at your market there is a product called Carbona. It's in a little yellow bottle. There are several of them and each one removes a particular type of stain. There is one specifically for crayon. They really do work.
Yes! I just bought the Carbona, I am very glad to hear it works because that first soak I tried barely did anything.
One of our dogs ate Shadow's FAVORITE pencil yesterday... he cried, as well. I felt pretty shitty about that... Since when do little kids get attached to writing utensils??
Soon he'll be old enough to leave you money in his pockets. I too learned the hard way but what ever you find, you keep.
It's an unwritten rule.
At this very moment I'm wearing spotted blue underwear from an all too similar incident.
More disturbing is... why did I just admit that to dozens of complete strangers? Oh, God bless the online anonymity.
I actually took my fingernail and rubbed the carbona into my sons pants. When you get most of the stain out with the carbona, wash the clothes in A LOT of Oxy. It might take more than one wash.
For the record, I'm not a laundress.
Oh, yes, good lord chapstick. My favorite work clothes. All with grease spots the size of dimes and quarters. I don't even have children to blame - it's ALL me.
getting out chap stick is actually not hard, just dab a drop of Dawn on each spot, let it sit a bit and then rewash.
i've had to do this more times that i'm comfortable admitting to!
You got in the back seat and wiped his tears? You officially win Mother of the Year. Your prize is a big, red crayon.
How handy of you to give him something to vent all of his feelings about you being away on...
heh heh heh
love it
Ugh. Crayon sucks - I hope you get it out okay. Check your pockets! Such a good lesson, and one I always forget. Last week I washed a lion puppet (forever ruining his mane by turning it into a sort of scruffy Afro hairdo) and two pairs of swim goggles. Thank god it wasn't crayon.
I turned 40 this year too
Damn straight! CYFP!
You should try the Magic Eraser in the dryer, the thing is the best! I love it when I find cash in the dryer.
WD40 works if there are small spots but I'm not sure who it would work on larger stains.
Put a load of towels you don't care about in the dryer next. It will polish off all the remaining wax.
and in my house, we get chocolate treats...which were housed in kids pockets...running through the washer and dryer! so...i'm with you on the checking of the pockets...too bad i ALWAYS forget to!
Caterpillars.
One year I washed a pocket full of caterpillers.
Oh. My. Fucking. Brains.
Delurking to say that I completely agree with you on the pockets thing. I left a chap stick in my pocket as a kid and ruined an entire load of my mom's work clothes... no allowance for the rest of the year for that one.
Btw, ms. karen…thanks for the laugh!
Worse than crayon: Blue Ballpoint Pen!! I usually check pockets twice, especially my pen hoarding fiance's pockets. But somehow I lapsed and washed and dried an entire load of laundry with a blue ballpoint pen.
Good news? The load was mostly dark colors. Except for my underwear...but who cares, right?
Bad news? Ballpoint ben does not come off the dryer drum with ease. After a google search I decided to try aerosol hair spray, since it was something I had on hand (for costume purposes). I proceeded to stick my head INTO the dryer, spraying each spot individually and, while choking on the hair spray, wiping as fast as I could and as hard as I could repeatedly. It worked, mostly. There are still faded blue smears on the drum, but it got most of it off and eliminated the danger of the next load being similarly tainted by the ink.
The kicker? I did it a second time not a month later! ACK!
Pre-treat with Zout then soak in hot water with white vinegar, tide and a cup of oxy-clean for a bit then wash on hot. This took green and red crayon out of everything except one pair of nylon wind pants. Though, even a magic eraser with ajax couldn't un-stain the dryer.
I chapsticked a load of laundry last week.
hee. Like when we went all the way cross country thinking we only had one baby shoe... and the other was in the coat pocket the entire time :)
Can we get that on a T-shirt? Or a hoodie with pockets?
Also--every time this happens I'm reminded of the little blue men on Twilight Zone responsible for moving time. It's not me, it's the little blue men.
Oh dear! That's completely something I'd do. And I might also cry if it had been my favourite crayon!
Great story. : )
I have washed more crayons than I care to mention. There is no cure. Throw the stuff away.
And I have been looking for my insurance card for ten days now, and finally found it in a pocket. A random pocket. In clothes I seldom wear. I think it crawled there in an effort to escape.
my mother once washed an orange crayon. no one has ever forgotten it, and that had to have happened, oh, 35 years ago?
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