Monday, July 15, 2013

In which the SRE goofs !!!!!!

He doesn't know it yet, but the Sometimes Resident Engineer has blundered.......

Washing machines are a great blessing and a boon, but they do require a little care in using them, or you may end up with  strangely coloured splotches on a load of formal shirts. I remember my mother-in-law being extremely impressed with the SRE's watch surviving an entire wash cycle, and still keeping time accurately. Although the SRE was the person who put it in his trouser pocket, I ought to have checked the said pockets before loading the machine.

Pockets are a pain. Things get left in them. Things like wallets, which I have managed to wash a few times. That is one of the few things I do that actually annoy the SRE, and for which I feel genuinely very remorseful.  And yet, somehow,  his wallet manages to get washed every year or so.

I have also managed to stain a brand new bed sheet with ball pen ink, by the simple expedient of bundling up the sheet and throwing it and its accompanying pillow cases into the washing machine, along with a ball point pen that one of us must have been using for Sudoku or the crossword.

This time, though, it was the SRE who done it. Not his wallet, but his Parker cartridge pen. (The replacement of the one I gave him for his birthday, which he lost within two months). He had come home from his travels on Saturday with a suitcase full of dirty clothes, which he proceeded to dump outside the hamper in our bedroom. I told him that he might as well dump them right into the washing machine, and he proceeded to do so.

I added more clothes and did a load of laundry yesterday.

The maid dried the clothes on the line. It was late at night when I took them down, as we had gone for a late movie (Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, in case you want to know- great film). It was only this morning that I noticed the pen lying on the window sill with a wet blue streak on its side. My heart sank. Did we have a load of clean-but-ink-stained laundry? Apparently not- the SRE is one lucky guy- his shirts escaped, and the pen leaked only after emerging from its ordeal! I have dismantled and wiped the various parts of the pen, and have mostly got the ink off my fingers.

I am already metaphorically rubbing my hands in glee, and looking forward to a very enjoyable evening.
My first question, of course, will be regarding the whereabouts of  his pen!

4 comments:

R's Mom said...

hehehehe! the washing machine in our house is often a khazana ghar :):) R's pencils from her uniforms (God knows why she keeps them there? *rolls eyes*) are a common thing :) and of course the coins, one odd tissues, bus and train tickets! and what not :)

dipali said...

@R's Mom: I seriously think pockets need to be banned from houses with washing machines!!!!!

Anonymous said...

I have washed LOTs of currency notes..coins.. visiting cards.. everything can be dried and then used. hehe.

dipali said...

@mandira: A wet wallet takes a very long time to dry:(