As if feral socks weren't bad enough...

....I'm now finding animals in the laundry.

Yep, you read that right. Not only do I have feral socks, but I also now have random animals showing up in the laundry.

I have spent literally the entire day doing laundry. It's mostly been sheets and bedding, but I've managed to get a few loads of clothes going too. For once, the girls had the majority of their dirty stuff in their basket, so I grabbed it a bit ago and took it into the laundry room and started chucking dirty stuff into the washer.

Now, I don't look at the dirty laundry. Truth be told, I don't want to look at it. I throw enough into the washer to fill it up, I toss in the detergent, and I turn it on and go - I don't check their pockets, I don't turn stuff right side out, nothing - they are old enough to do that themselves. If something is shoved into a pocket and gets washed because they didn't take it out - not my problem. If their laundry doesn't get clean because it's all bunched up and inside out - not my problem.

Yes, I know, I should make them do it themselves. Don't even go there. I have my reasons, ok?

Anyway, when the washer was done running, I went in to toss the stuff into the dryer. I got partway through the load of wet stuff, and when I reached back into the washer...I felt....something.

Something fuzzy. And wet.

And when I looked into the washer to see what it was, I saw eyes.

The practical part of me knew that it wasn't something that could be alive (anymore) but it still made me jump just a little bit - yes, I just admitted that.

I mean, come on, how often do you look into your washer and see eyes looking back at you?

After the split second of initial whatthewhat? I realized what it was and peeled myself back off of the ceiling.

Stupid freakin' stuffed animal.

*sigh*

Oh well. He's clean. And for scaring the crap out of me, he's now taking a nice hot dizzying ride in the dryer, where he will hopefully be smothered by underwear and feral socks. And just to get even, I think he will be posed somewhere in the girls' room so that they are greeted by his little beady eyes when they walk in there the next time.

Probably won't scare them, but it's kind of fun to think about it. At least it is for me.

Feral Socks

It never fails. Every time I do laundry, I end up with stray socks. So at some point, I got the brilliant idea to turn an old laundry detergent container into the "Runaway Sock Bucket". Every time there's a stray, it goes in the bucket. And when it starts to overflow and irritate the crap out of me, I dump it and attempt to match all of the strays.

Today, after it overflowed on me YET AGAIN, I decided to go through it and get them all matched. And I was reminded once again about how much I loathe socks. More specifically, I loathe socks in the laundry. It doesn't matter how careful I am - there are always strays. And I am convinced that the stray socks become feral and reproduce, turning into these strange varieties of socks that I have never seen before, like the small white ankle sock with a blue sole - I know for a fact that no one in this house has ever owned a pair of socks like that, so where did it come from?

But, I got the ones that had matches matched back up into pairs...threw away the feral ones that have been residing in the bottom of the bucket for the last few times that I have gone through this process, and ended up with only a small pile that are still strays. Hopefully as I continue to do laundry every day for the rest of my life over the next few days, I can get them matched up too.

Seriously - if someone were to invent disposable socks that didn't cost a fortune, I would SO be in the market for them. Buy them, wear them once, throw them away. End of my feral sock issue. And if they were one-size-fits-all and I could buy them by the case, I would be thrilled beyond belief.

Someone get on that, please.