COLUMN: Save your grandma, turn off the light
Well, I still can’t find that darn black one – sock, that is.
I’m sick of going to church with one really cold foot that I have to hide behind my other leg. Some astute observer may discover the “sock monster” has left me with exactly one half of a pair of my original 12-pack of dark dress socks.
I am 26 years old and have been doing my own laundry for exactly half of my life now, which is coincidentally exactly how long I’ve been annoyed, if not saddened at the whole laundry process.
A long time ago, probably during ancient Egypt, some idiot decided we needed to wear colorful clothing, thus requiring me by law to segregate the white and colored clothes in the wash. Not only is this morally wrong, but is entirely unfair.
Just think of this process from the clothes’ perspective. After being neatly folded and acting proper and quiet all week in a drawer, laundry day means party day! And not just any party, a pool party, followed by somersaults in the sauna.
Socks, underwear and T-shirts get to dance around enjoying themselves and seeing the other clothes have fun too. But for some reason, that forlorn white sock never gets a chance to meet that cute pink one. He sees her in the hamper but is afraid to approach, for fear of smelling like feet.
Then on laundry day, she always disappears, leaving him to party with just the other stained, ugly white socks. This must be why socks disappear.
It’s not some magical sock monster or even the purported laundry room gnomes who always raise the coin-op prices and conveniently break down the drier when you really need some clean underwear.
No, it’s actually sock depression. Laundry day is also the only day that clothes can experience freedom. The poor old white sock has his only chance of meeting Miss Pink. By flattening himself against the washer cylinder during the spin cycle, he may avoid detection from even experienced launderers.
And by some sheer luck, he may get to see what a colored wash is like. Unfortunately, all socks normally get accounted for in the wash/dry transition, so the sock has no choice but to run away. This always mysteriously involves the dryer. The only escape is with the uncaptured lint out the air vent and then off into the cool evening in search of a better life, probably as a dust rag.
The only part of the laundry process that makes me feel better is the continual chuckle I get when I leave the apartment complex’s laundry room. Just above the light switch there is a sign whose text demands that you be energy conscious by switching off the lights upon exiting the room.
If you look more closely, there’s a picture of the ultimate authority figure on the sign – grandma with a cane. And by using such a picture, the person who made this sign can only mean one of two possible things:
*Turn off the lights so your poor grandma doesn’t have to drive all the way from Virginia and turn them off for you, or
*Turn off the lights so your poor grandma doesn’t have to drive all the way from Virginia and beat you with a cane.
My grandma doesn’t own a cane, meaning she is still very mobile. She also really likes baseball, so I know what she could do if she had a bat or a cane, so for now, I’ll just keep promptly switch the lights off. In fact, I’ll just leave them off, and do my laundry in the dark.
No, my grandma is a sweet, pleasant-natured lady who would never come at me, waving a cane. But who says the picture is talking about my grandma?
In fact I fear the sign is talking about YOUR grandma – yeah – you know, that old, fiendish woman who, when subdued from her normally Rambo-like tendencies, bakes entire houses out of cookie dough so she can attract small children and pop them in the oven when they are busy munching on gumdrops. Gramboma can be truly frightening!
Well, I’d better go put back that sign I borrowed, or I may get caned. Besides, I have to go see if my underwear is finally dry.
Garrett Wheeler is a second bachelor’s student in technical theatre design. Send any comments, column ideas or a new 12-pack of extra large black socks to
wheel@cc.usu.edu.