Mad Scientist

I usually have a pretty good gut instinct when I throw clothes into the washer. Anything light or with light stripes or dots, even if most of the fabric is a darker shade, I wash them with whites. It seems logical and has worked for me. Well, friday it didn’t.

The sounds of my quiet and subsequently less quiet desperation called everyone in the kitchen where I sat kneeling on the floor, a pile of bright pink dress shirts on my lap. The culprit, a light pink T-shirt was guiltily cowering on the edge of the open washer.

“Not good,” I scolded the wet miserable lump in front of me (in fact, I may also have used some other more pointed words). I used to be even more of a compulsive type, taking this kind of defeat rather personally. And even though I wanted to kick my own ass (and almost succeeded in doing so), I managed to move on leaving failure behind me like dried out tube of toothpaste.

Years of living with children and being forced not only to face my shortcomings but also to live with them has taught me a neat trick: shrugging. I am still no pro at it and the tenseness between my shoulders tends to get in the way of it...but I am working on it.

Anyway, after the halo of fumes lifted I decided to google and find out what exactly had happened to Matt’s shirts and to see whether a lesson could be learned and maybe even taught. I also decided that maybe the inevitable bleach bath would be fun for the children to observe.

And did they have a ball. Clad in my white bathrobe to avoid further unwelcome stains and wielding toxic substances while elaborating on pigments and dyes I looked like the mad chemist from their comic books. In fact, Zoe liked my performance so much that she has decided to study Chemistry when she is done being a concert violinist and a relief worker in Sudan

That, or she may just have gotten the wrong idea...that scientists are people who walk around in bathrobes all day...