We have developed a new routine for when I get home since I have to leave to go into work every day. I remove my shoes in the garage and leave both them and my lunchbox outside. Then I strip down in the laundry room, put my clothes in the washing machine, hope I remembered to shut the garage door, and head off to take a shower before interacting with the family.
This has generally worked well, though if Vera sees me she wants me to pick her up and hug on her. I have learned to be quiet and sneak from the laundry room to the bedroom, but she has occasionally busted me and is extremely pitiful as she stands there and cries into a little puddle on the floor.
I occasionally leave things in my pockets and these things end up going through the washer and dryer. Generally, it is a crumpled post-it note or business card, but a few times a year it is something more egregious, like one of the blue pens I’m fond of. I like to pretend it is my wife’s fault, maybe she picked the pants off the floor and I say I wasn’t ready for them to be washed, or claim she should be checking the pockets before she puts them in the washing machine. We both know the truth though, and now that I’m putting my pants in the washing machine myself every day I’m left without much of an excuse.
I am an incredibly routine-oriented person. I prefer to have as many of the standard life requirements predetermined; I’d probably buy day-of-the-week undies if they sold them for adults. On a typical day, I put six psyllium husk capsules, two fish oil capsules, and a multivitamin in my pocket on the way out of the house. When I get to the office I take them all out of my pocket and put them in a certain spot on my desk as I unpack my breakfast lunch and snacks (I typically eat the same things every day at the same time). I take three of the psyllium husks with my breakfast, my fish oil and vitamin with my lunch, and the remaining three psyllium husks with an afternoon snack.
If my routine gets thrown off because of an oddly scheduled meeting or another quirk of the day I just leave whatever I didn’t take on my desk and grab fewer the next morning.
All those things work great when life is normal, not as much now. Since I’m not currently in my normal office I haven’t been taking my pills out of my pocket until I take them. I also haven’t been eating my same routine snacks and lunches, and I have frequently forgotten to take my allotted supplements.
This morning as I was getting ready it hit me that I may have left some of my planned supplements in my pocket when I tossed my pants in the washing machine. So before I left for work I went to the laundry room to check. Opening the door to the laundry room I was struck by the shockingly strong smell of mackerel.
Not only was I too late, I was double too late. Having a foreign object go through the wash is fairly benign. It’s the dryer where the forgotten notes shred, the pens leak, and the fish oil capsule that melted in the washer cooks into an entire load of clean clothing. The smell spread and soon the whole house smelled like a badly cleaned fish market that someone tried to dry with a hairdryer.
When I came home tonight I checked my pockets a couple/three times. My wife, barely able to eat her dinner, gagged as she loaded the “clean” pants into a trash bag to be removed from the house after a day of rinsing and soaking in various concoctions did nothing to remedy their stench. I still think it was her fault for starting the laundry too quickly.
If you see any sales on candles, let me know.
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