Laundry woes

A small part of me died last week. My favorite khaki vest. It has basically taken me seven days to feel emotionally capable enough to blog about this tragedy.

In most aspects of life I am a pretty easy going person. However, when it comes to laundry, I am completely neurotic. I trace this back to my first real experience of doing my own laundry. I was getting ready to move away to college. I am embarassed to admit it, but I had never washed my own clothes. My mother told me it was time that I learned to do my own laundry, and so I gave it a go. This wasn't so bad, I thought. What was the big deal anyway? I pulled my clothes out of the dryer and to my complete and utter horror, everything had shrunk. Cabbage patch doll size. As a young (yes, somewhat materialistic) eighteen year old, I was inconsolable. I honestly cried. For a couple of hours. From that day forward, I was never the same.

I am very particular about my laundry. I wash everything in cold/cold water on a light cycle. Instead of using dryers, I hang everything to dry on a drying rack. I am also extremely picky about what goes into each load. As a result, I usually wash about 7 loads each time I do laundry. Yes, I acknowledge the fact that this is slightly high maintenance, but I have never had an article of clothing destroyed since that first disastrous experience. That is, until last week.

Now to my beloved vest. It was a great vest. I found it on a trip out to Washington D.C. last October. My friend Tricia and I were walking through the shops near Georgetown one night and immediately it caught my eye. I had to have it. It was the only one of its kind. Since the day I bought it, it's been a wardrobe favorite. That vest and I were made for each other. Seriously.

The other day I was in the middle of doing laundry. A new, burgandy shirt (which was still bleeding shades of red) was lying on the drying rack. My khaki vest was in the middle of a wash cycle (alone, because I didn't want to chance washing it with anything else). I left the room for a while, and when I came back my vest wasn't in the washing machine. I found it lying on the drying rack. On top of the bleeding burgandy shirt. I bolted across the room to try to remedy the situation, but it was too late. The damage was already done. My khaki vest was covered in burgandy spots.

I was devastated. I wanted to cry. I wanted to yell at whoever was responsible. But I didn't. Maybe this is a sign of newfound maturity. I tried every trick I knew to remove the blood-like stains, and when nothing worked.... I simply had to give up and quietly mourn my loss. One week later, I am slowly recovering. I am still heartbroken about the unexpected death of my khaki vest. I am quite certain that I will never be able to find an adequate replacement.