When Bad Things Happen to Good Laundry or Hey! There’s An Alpaca in My Dryer!

My boys are the perfect husbands in training. That is my goal as their mother — that they would grow up to be a good partner and helpmate to some lucky girl. And by good partner, I mean a man who knows how to cook a few things and put his dirty underwear in the laundry basket without confusing the two. And really ladies, isn’t that all we want in a man?


Okay, no. That’s not all we want, not even close.


So far, Husbandry 101 is going...weeelll…OK. The boys can crack eggs, make toast and
open cans of soup. And every morning they dress themselves in mostly matching clothes and then bring me breakfast in bed and the newspaper. Okay, I just made up that last part, but the rest? Pretty good, eh?


Unfortunately, they are not yet discriminating launderers. And here I will put the blame squarely on the Y chromosome, where it belongs. Someone else I know who lives in my house who also has a Y chromosome put someone’s brand new linen walking shorts in the dryer on high heat with the towels. And she wasn’t happy.


At any rate, the other day, when Teen #2 got up and dressed himself, he put his jammies (which are basketball shorts and a t-shirt) in the laundry basket, but he also put his disposable gel icepack in the laundry basket too. He’s been working out a lot and his knee has been bothering him.


And I say unfortunately (I said unfortunately two paragraphs ago but understandably, you may have forgotten) because it was only after I was taking the clothes out of the washer and putting them in the dryer that I noticed all these odd little squishy balls of squishy stuff on everything. And at that time, I wondered what exactly is that squishy stuff? But just like in the military, we in the Berry household do laundry on a don’t ask, don’t tell basis.


So it seemed well and good to me that this was a job for the dryer because the dryer has more time and patience than I do when it comes to picking a zillion little squishy balls of squishy stuff off a carload of wet laundry. So I just shoved everything in the dryer, sent up a silent prayer, slammed the door shut, turned the dryer on and then RAN away.


When I came back later to retrieve the clothes from the dryer I found an alpaca in the lint trap.


So, a little science lesson here: Those squishy little balls of squishy stuff in gel icepacks? Itty bitty freeze dried alpacas. Just add water and heat.

Boo, betcha didn’t expect me when you opened up the dryer door!