The Tragedy of the Closet

Tragedy struck the GolfBlogger’s shirt closet this weekend.

As anyone who owns one knows, boys’ pockets are depositories of treasures that are recognizable to others only as debris: rocks, bolts, pieces of plastic, smashed Hot Wheels, bits of wire and occasionally some live critter. And, thanks to the design of modern pants which—in addition to the usual hip pockets— feature cargo pockets on the sides, the little pack rats now are able to tote more than ever.

The challenge of doing boy laundry is to try to get all of the pockets emptied before you toss them in the machine. Of course, with so many pockets, this often is difficult, if not impossible to accomplish. Mrs. Golfblogger is meticulous about this, but occasionally something slips through (before the feminists out there get their panties in a knot, I’ll point out that while Mrs.Golfblogger does the wash, I do the cooking—a simple division of labor).

So it came to pass this past weekend that a bit of red crayon passed through homeland security and snuck into the wash. It didn’t cause any trouble there; crayons are, after all, non-soluble. But when the little terrorist got into the dryer, disaster struck. The crayon melted and spotted everything with red blotches. It looked like the clothes had a case of the chicken pox.

Among the casualties were the oldest boy’s scout uniform, Mrs. Golfblogger’s Air Force fatigues (worn by one of the boys for Halloween), and a pile of golf shirts. Most of those are replaceable, but losing the one I bought at Torrey Pines in San Diego this past summer was a tragedy. It was—other than memories—my one souvenir of the course.

And the shirt was WAY too expensive to begin with. I generally won’t pay more than $20 for a shirt; I paid at least $60 —maybe even $80—for that one.

Neither of the boys would confess to being the crayon smuggler; indeed, they really have no idea what’s in their pockets at any given moment. So while I read them the riot act about emptying their pockets before throwing them in the hamper, it was a useless gesture. And while Mrs. GolfBlogger feels bad about the whole thing, she really shouldn’t—any more than I feel bad about cooking the occasional dud of a dinner.

Triple Bogeys happen.