I finally, FINALLY got to do my laundry. Been working too damn much to manage it for like... forever. It got to the point that I went out and bought new underwear, two new pairs of jeans, and two shirts, and I'm set for the next ten years for socks. All done just to reach this day, a Saturday during which I'm not going to toddle into work. So... I'm having another laundry moment. It's enforced yoga without the muscle involvement. It's meditation with enough noise to drown out any chanting. It's contemplating my navel through the last questionably wearable shirt that I own. So, there I was, not remotely in lotus position, sitting on a plastic chair, and my pen was poised over my book and quite forgotten. Dryers spinning, washers chugging away, and a pair of TV's were depicting home-made videos of people hurting themselves to a sound track of studio laughter. I was utterly bored and vaguely yawny. To my left was a bank of dryers management reserved for their own use, providing the service of cleaning your clothes for you. There was only one dryer going, and it was spinning in its clockwise way, juggling two very different colors. I blinked over the realization that the bright yellow in the mix was actual tennis balls.
In peering at the other article in the dryer, I could make out a heavy quilt of rich brown tossing about with the yellow. Although I had an inkling as to the reason now, I wanted to confirm this wasn't some sort of odd remedy to put the bounce back into dead tennis balls. When the girl working the shift wandered over, I prefaced my question with, "I have to ask..."
She was quite sociable. She even joked at first that Serena and Venus were in town and wanted their laundry done, then she proceeded to confirm my theory. The balls keep the quilts and comforters from bunching up. She claimed one still has to take out the big item in the middle of the cycle just to rearrange it, but the balls help get it uniformly dry.
A little dubious, I asked if it worked. She sauntered over to the dryer in question. "Oh yeah! Well, I think so. The only problem is-" And she demonstrated said problem by opening the spinning dryer's door. Tennis balls dropped out, bounced meekly, and rolled away. Two came towards me and, abandoning book and pen, I dropped to a knee to fish them out from under my bank of chairs.
"Ohh," I remarked lightly, "warm balls."
This casual observation was met with a girlish chortle, and, I must admit, I reacted to that with blinking incomprehension at first. It seems I have a tendency to say things that, in MY head, are perfectly innocent statements. The bloody things WERE warm. Almost hot. This was a veritable description of an occurrence I'd never come across before! Have you ever picked up a hot tennis ball? I haven't.
This is just like my statement, "I have to go home and shave my cat." For heavens' sake people... I HAVE a cat. She's a hairy beast, consisting of a finicky appetite, talons, and teeth, and every once in a while -despite her objections- I have to get rid of the snarls in her abundant foliage. I'm not announcing to all and sundry an intent to exfoliate portions of mine own anatomy. I'm not mowing my own personal lawn or depilatizing the Netherlands or whatever other euphemisms one can come up with for such an occupation. Why my statements are taken to places I hadn't intended I have no idea.
Anywho, I guess either my first response of blankness or the following indulgent wince at her reaction made her sober a little. She cleared her throat and replied, "Yes, they ARE warm balls." Then she ruined her effort by giggling once more.
I was now out of sorts for the way she'd taken my statement, and in adjusting to the direction this conversation had gone, I simply replied in kind and said, "But that defeats the purpose."
Now, this produced a total and complete lack of understanding which prompted my stuttering addition of, "Well... that's why. I mean, they work better if they hang outside the-" I was going to finish with 'body cavity', but her brow had deeply furrowed, and I realized I should stop now before I must perforce cram the whole rest of my leg in with the foot in my mouth? Oh bloody hell! Damn my Biological background...
I shook my head helplessly as I passed the heated fuzzy spheroids back to her. I tried to recover with, "Yeah, da sheets. It's better if you hang 'em outside." Lame, lame, lame . . .