the laundry

In order to do laundry, I have to walk outside and around the building to get into the basement. This presents a variety of different hazards, including a. not wanting to risk getting soaked, so never doing laundry when it rains and b. a testy sensor light that never seems to turn on when I need it to, then blinds me with a glaring light after I don't need it anymore and c. unforeseen events that could only occur when you have to trek any distance carrying more than your body weight (I have a tendency to let the laundry go for about six weeks at a time). To wit:

One day, I am scrambling up the steps carrying my clean laundry when I glance over into the neighbor's yard and happen to spy a pair of my underpants. There are several questions that you'd probably like to ask and I'll try to get to them in order of importance:

1. How did they get there? I'm assuming I dropped them on my previous trip to do laundry. It could have even happened the time before. But that's really the only explanation I can come up with.

2. How did I know they were my underpants? Well, they're these little lacy...never mind. They were mine, OK?

3. Why did the neighbors just leave them there, probably for several weeks? Your guess is as good as mine, but I never see them in their backyard and also, I think where my underpants landed was out of their line of sight from the inside of their home. 

4. How did I get them back? This presented the biggest problem. Although it was apparently quite easy to drop them into my neighbor's yard, retrieving my underwear proved to be a bit of a challenge. Because I dropped them over a rail from the top of the steps, they were quite a distance away from anything I could grab by reaching over or under the railing.

This also presented a second problem. Just how badly did I want my underpants back? I mean, I have a lot of underwear. It's not like losing a pair is going to force me to stay home from school. Which presented an unusual conundrum, namely:

Is it in poor taste to drop a pair of underpants in your neighbor's yard, and then just leave them there?

I thought hard about that one, readers. Because although it seems rude, and probably not what you'd want to find in your yard, I worried so much about how I was going to get my underpants back that I quite honestly considered just leaving them where they were. I even took a vote, and had my friends weigh in. Although some friends were firmly on the side of "eh, just leave 'em there," several people piped up and told me I should plan a recon, to recover my underwear in the dead of night.

So that's what I did. Just past the stroke of midnight, a bit before my bedtime, I cautiously opened the back door. Easing the door closed, I padded softly down the stairs, never taking my eyes off my neighbors' windows. God, what if they wake up? What if they find me creeping around their yard in the middle of the night in my old plaid wool bathrobe and even worse, what if they happen to catch me right at the moment I pick up my underpants? 

I worried and worried and stared at the yard, casing it as if I was a jewelry thief planning a Tiffany's heist. Finally, I took a deep breath and without breaking stride, ran around to the back alley and crept into their yard. Slowly...slowly...slowly...I can almost grab them. Oh! I didn't quite realize they were under that structure...It's going to take a bit of maneuvering...I got them! Whew. I straightened up, twirling the little scrap around my finger. Nothin' to it, I thought with no small amount of relief. Why, I could probably break into any store anywhere. In fact, I could...

Woof.

Woof-woof.

Peering up, I saw the neighbor's little dog looking back at me. Making that little noise that for many dogs, precedes a loud barkfest.

And then I ran.


Comments

Popular Posts