Labels - Who Needs 'Em....

Have you ever felt like you're a pro at something, only to be humbled to the very core?

Although laundry is not a tedious job, it definitely takes a little bit of practice. If I were to count the years that I've been doing laundry, I'd have to say it's somewhere around 15 years. During the first few years, my blunders included not sorting correctly, or being unable to get a certain stain out of something, or maybe even shrinking some item that didn't belong in the dryer. In college, I just threw everything I could into the machine and prayed that it would turn out alright, seeing as it would cost me 75 cents for each wash and 50 cents to dry, all in machines that would accept only quarters.

Those were the good ol' days.

Now I do all kinds of different loads of laundry. Darks, lights, whites, mediums, reds, light baby clothes, dark baby clothes, master bath towels, other towels, red towels, kitchen towels, master bedroom sheets, baby sheets, red sheets, and whatever else I find that looks like it'd fair well in the washing machine.

This leads me to my humbling experience.

Due to our "drought" conditions, and my commitment to do housework in excellence (and inexpensively), I decided that I would combine a load. I had some brown towels (okay, there was a blue one and maybe a green one...) and a brown blanket that all needed to be washed. I thought to myself: "Hmm, I bet I could wash all of this together!"


So, into the washing machine it all went.

Ah, don't you just love the feeling of multi-tasking?

I couldn't wait to get back downstairs after the load was finished to get it all into the dryer. As soon as I heard the buzz, I rushed down the stairs to the basement and flung open the lid.

HORROR of all HORRORS!!!

There were CLUMPS of brown lint EVERYWHERE!

Each and every towel was completely covered with brown fuzz from the blanket. I gasped and wondered what to do next. I felt helpless and hopeless. I wasn't sure where to begin, or if I was going to be able to remedy this, um, situation.

Once the world stopped spinning around me, I opted to put the blanket in the dryer alone. I went about whatever it was I was doing, and then decided that I might need to check on the progress of the blanket. This is when I realized that I had possibly made a little mistake.

The entire lint drawer was overflowing with the brown fuzzies. It was so full that I was almost unable to pull out the little lint catcher. I actually had to get the hand-held vacuum to help me clean up the lint.
(This picture shows all of the lint I collected.)

I had to do this thrice with the blanket alone. I then had to clean out the lint catcher two or three more times when I dried the towels. Each time I had to also use the vacuum to clean out the lint drawer, the lint catcher, and all of the lint that was floating around the dryer.

It was only after this whole ordeal that I found myself noticing a small white tag on the super soft brown blanket. This is what it said:

If you can't read this, it says, "Hand Wash Cold" and "Lay Flat to Dry"

Perhaps next time I will remember to read the labels first, and remember that I am still a novice at laundry!