2002-03-08 | 6:32 p.m.

corduroy licorice had an embarassment of riches. he owned over 2 million whopee cushions.

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from the "truth is stranger than fiction" file:

i think someone took my calcium supplement tums bottle out my office drawer. this is alarming. if they had a bone to pick with me, i wish they could have told me to my face instead of pilfering my osteoporosis prevention. i'm stumped over who would've done it...and i'll be stooped if they don't bring them back soon.

***

dear readers,
last night i encountered murphy's law, big time. or should i say murphy's law-ndry.

my apartment building's laundry room butts up against one of the units, which means that the couple living there gets to hear the spin cycle through their wall on a regular basis. hence, there has been a new edict of no washes started after 8:30 p.m.

this decree has put a serious crimp in my laundering habits. as arsenio would say, to me, washing clothes is a night thang. so now i have to rush to fit a load or two in before the fluff and fold cut-off time.

last night was no different. i practically sprained my ankle trying to throw in my detergent and push "start" before the clock read 8:31 on my second wash of the night--cursing under my breath about the new washroom regime all the while.

now, when i'd begun my first wash of the evening, i'd noticed that the astroturf carpeting under the machine looked a bit damp.

"hmm...," i thought to myself, "i wonder if something is amiss?" but no "out of order" sign cautioned me to the fact. i preceded. my darks were soaped and spun without incident. load #2 was not so lucky. as i opened the lid of the machine--smiling victoriously at fitting dos loads in under the wire--i noticed that there was still water in the machine. my clothes were soupily submerged as if they were simmering in a clothing crock pot. the machine's cycle lights were lifeless. uh-oh.

so it's 9-something and i realize that i'm facing a midnight snack at some still-to-be-located laundromat. argh! to add insult to injury, part of the load included bathroom towels. towels are quite absorbant, if you didn't know. as i bemoaned my dilemma, i remembered that the neighboring apartment building had an easily accessible laundry room of its own.

my, what evil, clever brilliance i possess!

cut to me wringing out my wash by hand, becoming soaked myself in the process, and then hauling heavyweight bags of wet laundry--as stealthly as i could move that kind of dead weight--into the neighbors' laundry room. so now, i'm not only soaking wet, annoyed and cold, i'm a trespassing laundress conducting my dirty business under cover of night.

fortunately, my scheme went swimmingly. my delicate underthings and bathroom linens were finally properly washed and dried.

hopefully the service man was able to fix the machine today. if not, it would make a lovely koi pond. as opposed to the "oy!" pond it was for me last night.

yours in clean undies,
nictate

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