Home Alone - Aug 14, '02

Hi everyone,

 This will be short – actually it will discuss shorts. 

 With Sharon making an extended stay in Colorado, I have been abandoned and left to provide for myself. The first thing I did was to make a pitiful plea to several ladies at work to see if I could mooch a few home-cooked meals. My shameless begging was not rewarded - I certainly work with a heartless or suspicious group – at my age, food really was all I had in mind. Having failed that tack, I have been left to two staples for meals – spaghetti and the fare at my girl friend’s, Wendy’s.

The other day in an email to Sharon, I mentioned that I was about “splits-ville with Wendy’s, and had started hanging around with Arby’s.” Then I whined that I was about out of the meager ration of spaghetti sauce that she had left for me. I received a four-word, one-line reply. Not “Hi, how are you doin' ”, nor “I miss you, wish you were here”; just a simple, single sentence: “Better learn to cook”. That was cold!

Laundry represents another challenge. Fortunately, I had been sent home with a bag full of clean cloths and I dutifully followed the last minute instructions to take them out of the bag, hang them on hangers in the bathroom and spray a mist of water around any wrinkled areas. That got me through the first week and then for a few bucks at the cleaners, the shirts and long pants were taken care of for the following week. All I can say is that from the length of the line to get into the door of that place, this world is full of laundry challenged individuals – I am in good company. In fact that it is such good look’n company I might have my shirts done more often.

Now all that was left was to take care of was the more delicate, normally unmentioned, under garments. We used to just “air ‘em out” over the back of a chair each night in the dorm at college, but a professional man, such as myself, probably ought to have freshly washed garments each morning. So as the supply in my upper drawer rapidly dwindled, I was faced with the formidable task of operating the washing machine and dryer. After dumping out the hamper, I quickly sorted things into three piles; long pants, dress shirts and everything else. “Everything else” got thrown in the wash machine, which was set at “heavy soil”, a cup of detergent was added and the appliance turned on.

A couple of hours later I noticed that the gnashing of gears has ceased in the garage, so I went out to transfer the load into the dryer. As the second handful of wet fabric arched through the air toward the waiting dryer, I noticed that some of the white things were not white anymore. Some, but not all, white fabric had turned to a light pinkish brown color – I suspect that "everything else" had included some very dirty hiking socks which had shared their clinging top soil with the rest of the load. The colored socks were unaffected so they continued into the dryer. Next I decided that the color shift was not too noticeable on the hiking shorts, so they too continued into the dryer. But the cotton portions of my Hanes were a variety of shades of earth-toned colors. On the other hand, their elastic bands had remained bright white – I had two-toned briefs – designer undies for the aging hiker!

I could not leave things that way – so the majority of the load was returned to the washer and this time in addition to the cup of soap I added 1 ½ cups of bleach. The treatment proved to be of limited success as the color was merely reduced to a very pale, barely noticeable, yellow. But then, who is to notice? Sadly, if I can’t even mooch a few free meals from the ladies, I am certainly at no risk of ever being caught in a situation where the color of my briefs would become public knowledge.

Recently Natalie wrote an email and at it’s end she added a "thank you" to me for being a photographer. From that I gather that she enjoyed the recent pictures of our grandsons, Ethan and Alex, which I have added to the web-site. She is too kind. An old man with a camera does not make a photographer – but occasionally a good subject will stumble past in front of the camera just as some geriatric spasm triggers the shutter. Thanks for the kind thoughts anyway.

Love from Phoenix
Bachelor Rog