Bleach Blanket Bingo

There are many facets of domestic life that still remain a mystery, despite over three years of living with Adam and becoming as domesticated as I have ever been. For instance, I hate to dust. Actually, what I mean is it never occurs to me to dust. I am not a natural born duster. So the fact that Adam DOES like to dust ensures that a dust bunny doesn't rise up and devour us both.

Another area in which I fail is laundry. I admit, I don’t know much about laundry. Until yesterday I wasn’t aware that colors should be watched in colds and whites in hot. I never read the care labels and just throw things in and hope for the best. I even commit the ultimate laundry related faux pas and wash my dry clean only items in the gentle cycle. This works out okay more often than you would probably think. In any case due to this lackadaisical laundry attitude, Adam does most of our laundry. Why he doesn’t trust his clothes to someone who thinks that blow drying a shirt can substitute using an iron, I will never know.

But there are days like yesterday when I have to step up to the plate.

I was home from work and Adam, who was still at work, asked me to do a load of whites since he would not have time to do it. He instructed me to use bleach and I balked. What exactly do I do with the bleach? Sprinkle it on the clothes? Mix it with the Tide before I put it in? He instructed me to pour a capful into the machine before I put the clothes in, and after the clothes are in to pour in the Tide. And to wash it on hot. Easy Peasy.

Too bad he neglected to tell me that putting the bottle of bleach in a basket of clean clothes to transport it back up to your apartment is perhaps NOT the best idea.

Moments later, when I dumped the clothes out on the bed, I noticed his long sleeved Bruins shirt was covered in whitish orange spots.

This shirt is normally black.

Oh crap……

I smelled my hands and realized they smelled like bleach and when I ran into the kitchen I realized the bleach bottle that I had thrown into the laundry basket had bleach drippings on it and that had transferred to Adam’s favorite Bruins shirt and who knows what else.

Crap!

I washed my hands and hastily went through the rest of the pile. Everything else seemed okay and free from bleach spots. Until the pile was gone and I noticed the odd dime sized white spot square in the middle of our brand new comforter.

CRAP.

Knowing that I was in trouble, I decided to face the music and call Adam at work to tell him about his shirt and the bed. I prefaced it like this.

OHMYGOD OHMYGOD SOMETHING SO TERRIBLE HAS HAPPENED!!!!!”

(I learned this trick as a kid, if YOU overreact to something bad you did than your parents response is more likely to be “Oh its not that bad” than if you start off trying to make it less than what it is)

Unfortch I forgot this is Adam’s favorite Bruin’s shirt we are talking about so IT REALLY WAS SO TERRIBLE. Not to mention the new bedspread that he (and I) love(d). And I tend to be overdramatic about everything so he is hip to my game anyway.

In the end, after some moments of dissapointment and incredulity at my thinking throwing the bleach bottle in a basket of clean clothes was a good idea, he chuckled about it and we agreed perhaps the whites are best left to him from now on. And we didn’t speak of it again. Until we got home from dinner that night and he realized half his boxers are now covered in bleach spots as well.

What? They weren’t like that before?