Laundry
- ju10117
- May 1, 2002
- 2 min read
May 2002
He came home for the weekend.
In he swaggered, automatic rifle slung over one shoulder, army pants tucked into those heavy boots…and over the other shoulder, his bag. You know – the HUGE kit-bag almost as big as he is. The one even he staggered under its extremely well packed bulk.
He let it fall to the floor with a thud. I ran to hug him, to breathe him in, and to welcome him home.
Mistake number one. The "breathe him in" part. The child had become a sweaty man. In 6 weeks. A smelly, sweaty man. How did that happen so fast?!!
Anyway, he drags the heavy bag to his room, unpacks and as he is about to get in the shower – informs me that he needs laundry done – "by tomorrow night so he can take it back to base."
No Problem. I have been doing his laundry since the day he was born. Remember those little overalls? With the sweet smell, and the fluffy feel. And then through the years, the laundry changed…but that’s what us mom's do – we do laundry.
I became aware of the smell before I knew what it was. A toxic odor that wafted through the house. A really really bad stench that permeated all the way down the corridor. I quickly went down the corridor – my bloodhound nose sniffing to find out what had died and where it had made its grave.
And then I came upon it. The Pile. Of Laundry. An recognizable mound of crumpled something that had quite the foulest smell I had ever had the misfortune to encounter. I quickly put on rubber gloves. I wasn’t going to TOUCH that with my hands!! With a peg firmly on my nose I started to examine the parts – uniforms, vests and T shirts – molded together with a combination of tank grease and sweat – that could definitely have been bottled and sold as biological weaponry. And the socks…oh dear lord, the socks. They were ready to march themselves to the death of all smelly things into the washing machine.
Life in the laundry basket was never going to be the same again.
Comments