A Fateful Decision

I had to make a terrible, horrible decision the other day. It was about my laundry.
As a preface, I am something of a pack-rat. I save things. Lots of things. I have a 10-pound box of dead batteries because (and I am perfectly serious), they might one day be useful.

Don’t laugh. When aliens invade and their only weakness is a flail made out of dead D-Cells and a ski pole, I will be the one saving the super models.

NOTE: I also have a four-pound ball of tape, a collection of nuts and bolts from various pieces of machinery, my old BB gun that no longer fires, a variety of sports equipment from sports I never played, a saddle, a gross of ping-pong balls from the early ‘80s, a woman’s bowling ball, and an Atari 2600 and about 30-games.

What was I talking about? Oh yes . . .

My laundry.

As I was folding it, I realized that a large percentage of my socks, maybe as high as 40%, had serious holes in them. As in ‘if I’m not careful when I put them on, my foot will actually go through instead of in.’

A decision had to be made. I could save them. I could simply stuff them in the back of my (overflowing, go figure) chest of drawers and forget about them until such time as they were needed to repel the armada from Perseii Omicrom 8.
I could also simply throw them away.

This is not such an easy decision. Some of these socks have been with me since college. They gallantly cushioned my feet when I worked at various part-time jobs. They courageously kept my feet from sweating in the hot California sun and making me smell even worse. They nobly complimented my tennis shoes with their start whiteness. I could not simply discard them like so much trash.

In the end, I threw away some of them, those who were too badly wounded to keep going. I deposited them gently into the garbage can and hummed the bits of ‘taps’ that I could remember. I may have said something moving, something about ‘how their spirit lived on, even as their elastic failed.’ A single tear might have been shed.
The others, the ones that weren’t too far gone, went into a box in the spare room.

Just in case.

Cheers,
-Jason

Things

Things have been rather slow, but still amazingly busy around Wayfarer's Moon. Leigh is still up to his eyeballs in Photoshop trying to get Issues #2 and #3 ready for printing so we have something to show at the cons. I'm swamped at work right now, but am trying to get Issue #5 done in a timely fashion.

Really, not much happening. Seriously.

. . .

I did laundry.

It wasn't evil laundry or anything (though my shorts were present), just regular ol' laundry. It didn't for my jugular or pull a knife, it just kind of . . . oscillated.

Like I said, not very exciting.

I'll put up something fun tomorrow.

Cheers,
-Jason

Hello, Mr. Mammoth

I am glad I was born in this day and age. There are many reasons for this (video games and polio vaccinations, for starters), but the main reason is that I would not have survived in any other era. Why would I think this? Well, let me tell you a story.

Today, I was doing laundry. I happen to have three boxes of detergent sitting on the drier, ready to dispense their cleansing goodness. I do not recall why I purchased three boxes, but there was probably a sale.

I filled the washer with a selection of black t-shirts and picked up the nearest box of detergent. It was empty. This did not perturb me, as I had two more boxes at the ready. I picked up the second box of detergent. It was also empty. I picked up the third box. It too, was empty.

Not only had I not thrown away empty detergent boxes, I had also managed to place them in such a fashion as to make it look like they had not been opened.

I am apparently quite dim.

Honestly, I had no idea the boxes were empty. I knew that the nearest box was running out, but I obviously had two more full boxes, so I had not bothered to buy more.

How does this relate to living in another era? Simple. I would have been the one caveman who forgot to bring his spear.

We would have been clustered on a hill, ready to attack a wooly mammoth. The leader would have looked around, making sure we were ready to risk our lives to feed our clan. And he would have seen me, playing with a rock.

Leader: Where spear?

Me: What?

Leader: Where spear?

Me: My spear? Oh, funny story. I thought I had a couple, but I must have forgotten to make more. Why, do I need one?

Leader: {long pause} No. Go pet big mammoth. Him friend.

Me: Really? Why hello, Mr. Mammoth! It is certainly a lovely- AAARRRGH! MY DUODENUM!

Leader: Idiot.

Basically, my ancestors fought and scraped to survive so that one day I could be completely incapable of doing my laundry.

It kinda makes you think, doesnt it?

Cheers,
-Jason