We Need to Buy Stock in This Stuff

In our family 4 people routinely do laundry, but only two of them frequently wash the unwashable. You know, things like debit cards, rosaries, driver's licenses, money, church bulletins, and oh yes, the ubiquitous "rogue pens" as my daughter calls them. It's not the males in the family who do this. They routinely go through their pockets and empty them out before doing laundry. My daughter and I, however, a. keep things in pockets that probably shouldn't be kept there and b. rarely go through said pockets before throwing stuff in the wash.

I did it again today. I washed my white winter coat, along with a number of other items without checking the pockets. When I opened the dryer what did I behold, but a blue pen right at the front of the load. I could see my white coat on top of the load and right in a conspicuous spot the marks of the pen. I checked the other items and I was fortunate that only two shirts had been affected, and those only marginally. Alcohol and Oxi-clean took it right out. The coat on the other hand is another story. It's still sitting in the sink in an Oxi-clean and alcohol solution. The stains are diminishing, but they aren't completely gone yet. I have hope because some of them have vanished, but the worst ones are still hanging on. Fortunately this was a coat I've had for quite awhile and it was super cheap to begin with. It's not like I wrecked my L.L. Bean jacket. But still it's the only dress coat I currently have, so if the ink doesn't come out I'm wearing a red parka to church this week.

You'd think I'd have learned by this point, but no, I haven't. My dear daughter hasn't either. She washed her debit card a couple of weeks ago and sent it through the dryer. Only she did it in the laundry room at her boyfriends apartment building. She didn't find it afterwards either. The person who did find it reported it to the financial institution and then cut it up. So she's had to wait for a replacement. Live and learn, except we don't seem to.

What we obviously do need to do is buy stock in Oxi-Clean.