“Do you promise not to swear?”
It is my wife’s way of preparing me for bad news.
“Why?”
“I won’t tell you until you promise not to swear.”
“Okay, I promise.”
“You put your wallet and keys in the washer again.”
“DRAT!”
“You promised you wouldn’t swear.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did so.”
“Drat is not a swear word.”
“But you made it sound like one.”
“That doesn’t make it swearing.”
“Yeah, but it is equally unpleasant.”
Okay, she has me there.
I do get upset when I forget to take my wallet out of my pants and I wash my pants every day after walking my dog around the block.
My block is seven miles around.
Most of that walking is done on what the township calls gravel roads but I have yet to find a single pebble on our local roads. Most of it is sand. More accurately, it is dirt and when wet, it is mud. So I wash my walking clothes every day and with amazing regularity, I also wash whatever is in my pockets after I forget to empty them.
My wallet looks like something that has been frequently washed. It is scuffed, worn, torn and threadbare and definitely in need of replacement, but a new wallet is an extravagance that I deny myself, mostly because I cannot be trusted with anything nice.
And everything in the my wallet has suffered.
I once carried pictures of those dearest to me, but now all I have is pulp and yes, I still carry the pulp. I guess that makes me sentimental.
My social security, medicare and insurance cards are pulp too, yet I hang onto them, not out of sentimentality but rather if called upon to present them, at least I could present pulp.
But it is the money I worry about. Granted currency is made from cotton, not paper, and the ink the government uses is just as resistant to wash water and detergent as are my clothes – but my worries concern the drying process.
Whereas the washing machine does an excellent job of drenching my wallet, the dryer takes a hand-off approach, which means I have to set everything in my wallet out to dry, otherwise run the risk of sitting on something disagreeable.
And therein lies the rub.
Whenever I set my money out to dry, someone I know and love interprets that as an opportunity to pilfer.
Knowing this is why I utter such unpleasanties.
“You needn’t have sworn,” my wife informs me.
“Sorry, but I hate it when I wash my wallet.”
“You didn’t.”
“What?”
“You loaded the washer but forgot to turn it on, like you ALWAYS do!”
“DRAT!”
“There you go, swearing again.”
Almost Iowa 
I don’t think I’ve ever laundered the wallet, but it did go swimming a couple times back when I had a small sailboat.
Not sure what I said as it was capsizing.
I’ve lost mine so many times. I made copies of everything which makes it easier to remember what needs to get replaced.
im often forgetting earphones in my pockets n theyre not working after going in the wash 😣
I washed a pair last month and they still WORK !! 🙂
Whoa. Good for you! 😁
Maybe cuz the ones I have are all cheap? Dunno. Two went thru the wash just this month and both died. 🍃
Oh dear. . . At least you still have your sense of humor.
I still have that.
I so enjoyed this post!
I hope as much as I loved writing it.
Definitely!
Maybe you should get a chip with GPS, Greg. No need for a wallet there. And your wife could track you. –Curt
She doesn’t need GPS. She has a much more powerful and accurate system, it’s called neighbors. Around here, everyone knows what everyone else is doing, every minute of the day.
Up, down, sideways and over the top! Peggy pays close attention and has a much better ‘sense of direction’ from that perspective than I do. It’s good to have at least one member of the family socially inclined. 🙂 –Curt
Ha! Sometimes good news is still bad news. I haven’t washed my wallet yet, but I sure wash Kleenex a lot. And those stupid things shred to a million pieces in both the washer and dryer, and stick like Velcro to all the other clothes in the load. Luckily, I usually get away with blaming my husband for forgetting to take them out of his pockets…..
You know what’s worse?
Doggy treats.
Whenever I walk Scooter, which is every day, I stuff my pockets with doggy bones. He gets a treat every time he returns to the leash when we are walking and that is about half our walk. I keep him leashed around neighbor’s yards and equipment in the fields. Other than that, he is free to roam – but then I forget to take treats out of my sweatshirt pockets.
Not good… 🙂 🙂 🙂
At least there will be no pilfering of drying dollars! That would cause another drat.
Well, there is that. 🙂
Easy solution – take your pants off before you go for a walk – and then you won’t need to wash them.
Normally, the blast area of gossip is about 15 miles. That would extend it another 200.
Of course, as you can imagine I have been banned from loading the washer or dryer. It goes so far as even banning transferring washed clothes that my wife loaded into the washer from the washer to the dryer. How is that? you say. Two words. Pink Sheets. Former whites turned pink by the addition on one red t-shirt. I know it sounds like sabotage but it was an innocent mistake. Just like putting bleach on denim pants was innocent.
I have heard of successes from that strategy, unfortunately in some household that would be an invitation to nuclear warfare. She knows how to shrink and color stuff too – and toss random cherished objects into the washer.
“Honey, how in the world did the brass sextant sitting on my desk get in the wash?”
“How would I know? Ask the cats.”
Ha hahah. Excellent.
I had to laugh when you mentioned you wouldn’t get a new wallet. I had to BEG my husband to get a new one. His was falling apart to the point where his cards and money kept falling out! lol
Dan Antion addressed this below. Imagine sitting on a wad new hard leather every workday for three or four months. So much nicer to sit on something that is falling apart (in just the right places).
Surprise ending! Your wife knows how to get you going. She may even enjoy hearing you ‘swear.’ So she’s retiring in May? That will add a whole new dynamic to your relationship I’m predicting. Are you prepared for this big step?
I dunno. We have all kinds of plans to travel and do stuff and that is exciting – but walking the dog and long well-written articles on the computer have their appeal too. In time, everything will settle down – but yeah, I am looking forward to it.
It’s nice to have the mountaintop experiences, but daily walks and time to write with no work demands are the thing that long term happiness is made of.
Haha, perfect story! Love these funny little anecdotes.
I like telling little tales that everyone can identify with. I mean, who hasn’t washed more than clothes? 🙂
You know where the washer is? Maybe I should get my husband to read this.
Before he reads it, copy the text and print it out on plain white paper. Tell him it was written by anonymous. Anonymous is easy to blame, he writes all kinds of troublesome stuff. 🙂
There are several things a wife should never gift to the husband, one of them being a new wallet, the other being a new pocketknife, the other being a new sweatshirt… Men, I’ve learned, don’t like breaking in new items, preferring the worn, the familiar, the comfortable. You validate that in your post.
And the loss of one of those items is traumatic. Like a fool, I forgot to take the pocket knife that I have carried for years, out of my pocket when I went to the airport. TSA has it now. 😦
Without adding ‘bother’ to ‘drat’ I don’t see that you’re swearing. Now if said ‘drat & bother’ I’d be offended. 😉
HEY!! This is a family friendly blog!! 🙂 🙂
As for swear words in blogging…., when Lenny Bruce and George Carlin used swear words and obscenity, it was shocking and funny. That was then, this is now. Given the state of comedy, DRAT is far more shocking than anything blue. 🙂
Life lesson #7,204: credit cards don’t suffer from being washed. Cell phones do. That’s when I can be tempted toward swearing, and sometimes sound like Grandma. “Dangnabit” does sound more swearing-like than “Dang!”
Washing phones.
Uh, that too.
Ha! Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Dang. I swore, didn’t I?
You did!!
I’m glad to hear you don’t toss Scooter in the machine. Buying a new wallet is to be avoided at all costs. It takes so long to break in a new wallet. I usually go about 2-3 years after my wife first says “you need a new wallet.” Watchbands are in a similar category.
In our house, what goes in the washer, belongs to the laundry lady – regardless of who puts it in the machine.
Given that my wife still works (until May) and I am home – that makes me the laundry lady….uh, make that laundry person.
Nope, Greg the laundry lady.
My question is this? Is a wallet really necessary when walking the dog. Can’t he carry his own credit cards?
Scooter having a credit card? Really? Think about it. This is a dog who rolls around in the essence of dead skunk. Now imagine what he would do with a credit card.
As for carrying a wallet, always. Do you know how long it takes to identify a body without ID? Or imagine a comatose car accident victim in orbit around hospitals that refuse to take anyone without a medical insurance card.
Oh, they say that don’t happen, but it does.
Dog tags?
For you… I’m sure Scooter already has some.