Today was laundry day. We came home from a weekend excursion and there was a huge pile of dirty clothes that had accumulated on the washroom floor. Two loads of towels and one load of dark-coloreds went through. The first collection of light coloreds were almost at the end of the journey with the clothesline in sight when, upon extraction, I discovered a pen. In the dryer. I gasped.

Now every mother, sister, or aunt (or even father, brother, or uncle) who has ever spent excessive hours occupied with the upkeep of a household knows that to find an ink pen in the dryer is a disaster.

Hours of scrubbing loomed ahead. With a sigh, Mom and I rolled up our sleeves proverbially and got out the needed supplies: two scrub brushes, and many various stain removal liquids. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the clothes affected had been old work garments. Alas, they included a preciously soft nightgown, one of my newest dresses, and a prized shirt with a Tonn’s Honey logo on it. We scrubbed. We scrubbed some more. We used all the products we had – from Purple Power to Goo Gone to Orange Wonder to rave hair spray.

About halfway through, we heard a series of noises on the road. A UPS semi had made a very abrupt stop right in front of our house, making a ‘screeech’ and a bunch of those ‘pshhhhss’ noises semis make all the time. We ran out from the back patio to the opposite side of the house to investigate. I grabbed my phone with super-slippery hands and slid across the carpet (yes, I slid across the carpet. chemicals, chemicals) – ready to dial 911 in case of anything serious. To make a long story short, Mom and the UPS guy unloaded a small skid of plastic bottles onto our van, by hand.

While Mom was doing that, I called for backup. Ann Kline (Grandma’s primary caretaker who’s there during the week) came to my rescue and took the nightgown over to Grandma’s to work on. She mentioned using Pantene Pro-V Shampoo was sure to take the stains out. Fortunately, we had a ginormous bottle on hand. But, the stains had settled and only improved a little bit. So now Dad has a *new* work shirt and my yellow dress is ruined.

I hate when pens get in the dryer and ruin perfectly good clothes.

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