Decay of My Civilization

I've always felt that to be a part of a society deemed "civilized" one of the criteria was finite standards. We are civilized if we wash our hands before dinner yet uncivilized if we don't wash our hands after using the bathroom. It's a matter of drawing lines. This behaviors is acceptable, that behavior isn't. Problems arise when the definitions of civility or placement of of the barrier lines aren't agreed on by everyone. For example some people think I'm uncivilized or uncouth because I talk a lot about drinking where as I just think they are uptight knobs.

I mention this today because I crossed the threshold today into uncivilized behavior today. Crossed really isn't accurate...I sailed gracelessly over the line flipping my nose off at people as I went. Actually at the time I wasn't so much concerned about rules of society as I was about exercising problem solving skills.

My dryer died a few days ago and I haven't called the repairman yet. I haven't done that because I'm saving every dime I can for this trip to Melbourne I'm planning. I don't WANT to put $200 into the damn dryer right now. OK, I realize that no one wants to spend that on repairs but if I spend than we have to skip on doing some cool stuff and I really don't want that. So I'm not calling the guy.

That would be fine except that the washer is a little under the weather also. It's spin cycle is more of a turn around a bit and let the water drain by evaporation. The clothes come out soaked and weigh an extra 10 pounds.

Yesterday I had to was Teddy's sports day uniform cause he had already worn it 2 times this week. Rough life for these Year 6's- this week he's played sports 3 days. Ummm, any school work please? But I cracked and had to wash the clothes before their was enough DNA to create another species.

All washed and clean last night I hung them up in the Laundy room-it's been raining off and on and I was really sick yesterday so I didn't feel like going outside to hang the load on the line. It was dripping all over the place but Damn Dog was thirsty so I thought of it as a twofer.

This morning though, I woke up and the clothes were still wet. Really wet. Damn, was not expecting that. Hoo Boy...thinking fast-not that easy at 7am and tea-less I ran upstairs and turned the hair dryer on the shirt- no hope for the shorts, too wet do I left them on the rack. The hair dryer helped some but not enough. I remembered a friend telling me once the microwave ovens worked by heating the moisture causing evaporation thus removing the moisture. This sounded like sound science to me. What the Hell...

So I toddled downstairs and chucked the shirt in for a few minutes. By the way, if you are going to attempt this yourself I recommend you only setting it for 90 seconds at a time and testing the fabric. You'd be surprised how quickly cotton heats up. So there I was, nuking the shirt, as you do, when Teddy asked how long does it take for me to make porridge for gods sake. Thank you Captain Smart Ass. You can imagine the look of shock on his face when I opened the door, took out his shirt and flung it at his head. Slightly dryer but really damn hot.

My point about all if this is that not even reaching the point of microwaving clothing has made me call the repairman. I'm no longer surprised that I would do such a silly thing, please, you've been reading this blog, it's hardly worth the mention.

Where my slippery slide into chaos is that it didn't even occur to me that it was time call. It wasn't until about an hour ago (about 5 hours after the event) did it slowly drift across my mind that maybe, just maybe it's not a good idea to blow dry and microwave clothes.

So I'm just going to embrace my inner uncouthness for a while. Maybe I should keep an Excel spreadsheet of all the nutjob stuff I do so that someday I can sit back and look at the exact point where I lost my ever loving mind. Might be useful for Ted and the kids some day.