Just When Val Thought It Was Safe to Go Back In the Laundry Room...

I might have mentioned how Hick does his own laundry. It's not because he's doing Val a favor, being all noble and crap, lessening her workload. Nope. It's because he's a hard-head. Because during our first year of marriage, I laid down the Val Law. Told him I was not his maid, and I would not pick up his inside-out pants and his tighty-whities from the bedroom floor. If he wanted laundry done, he would put it in the hamper like a normal human being.

Well, being Hick, he was not about to kowtow to Val's commands. Rather than pick up his own dirty clothes off the bedroom floor and carry them one room away to drop them in the clothes hamper, Hick decided that he would do his own laundry. That would show Val who was boss! Uh huh. It did. For 25 years now, Hick had done his own laundry. In a curious manner.

First Hick adjusts the washer setting on the load size (super to large, even though he crams a month's worth of pants and shirts into one washing), the temperature (hot/cold to warm/cold), and the dryer setting from polyester/knit to cotton/high heat. Then he changes the dryer timer from silent to LOUD. Who knew we were such opposites? Fetch that meat platter forthwith for the Backroads Jack Sprat and wife!

Hick has a penchant for leaving dryer sheets in the dryer. Even though they are used up, he leaves them for me. Such a thoughtful guy. Leaves them in plain sight, right in the middle of the drum, just like he had put it there on purpose. Always at the front and center. Not like he might have simply forgotten it. What are the odds that Hick removes a month's worth of pants and shirts, or a month's worth of underwear and socks, and that Bounce stays right in the same place? Uh huh. Told you so.

This afternoon, I went in to do some laundry. And this is what I found:

Yeah. Do YOU know what that is at first glance? I was expecting a Bounce. Or a Walmart equivalent. But this thing was foreign. I sent The Pony to take a picture for me. He returned holding the unidentified drying object. Yep. It's a UDO.

"What are you doing with that? I told you to take a picture! Now you have disturbed the evidence!"

"No I didn't. I took the picture first. Then I picked this up. I thought you would send me back to throw it away. Look. It's a Taco Bell receipt!"

"Huh. We brought home Taco Bell last night. How did he get the receipt?"

"I guess he got it out of the bag."

"That doesn't make sense. How would it end up in the dryer? Wait a minute! When I got the receipt, I handed it back to you in T-Hoe! I took my change and put the dimes in the coin cup, and the bills in the side of my purse, and gave you the receipt."

"I remember! And I put it in the trash bag!"

"Uh huh. That was a different Taco Bell receipt. Your father has been going to Taco Bell without us!"

Which would explain the smell in the bedroom when I go to bed at 1:00 a.m.

Oh, and here's an interesting tidbit. I sent Hick a text that I would make him lunch when I got back from town today. He replied: "OK o lobe you."

So I sent back: "O lobe you too."

That's my Hick. Happy Valentine's Day.