The Great Clothes Dryer Insertion Incident of 2020

Something you might not know about me is that I’ve never been particularly fond of using a cloths dryer to dry my clothing. I’ve always preferred to put my clothing out on a cloths line or, since I live in an area where these things are restricted, I used a folding rack to dry my clothing. It’s a bit of a nuisance, having to lug the clothing outside, wait for it to stop raining, hope my socks don’t blow off the back patio, and the like, but I’ve always been a big fan of the fresh smell and never felt the need for a dryer. In fact, I’ve never even owned a cloths dryer, well, until today that is.

It all started when I bought some pillows. My old pillows fell apart and I decided that it is easier to get packages under quarantine so I took the plunge. (I highly recommend the sleep number pillows, but that’s another story.) When I purchased one of my new pillows (a down variety from Boll & Branch) it came all stuffed into a box with directions that said, “plump them up by putting them in your cloths dryer for two minutes.” Ah, that would be big trouble in paradise because, you see, I didn’t have a cloths dryer. Hmm. What to do, what to do? I ended up beating them about with a stick, which sort of worked, but the process got me to thinking. I decided that, if I had a cloths dryer, I might actually use it, especially since I’m stuck at home. It’s kind of one of those things. I don’t necessarily need one but, if I had it, I might actually use it, right? So, I decided to get a dryer.

My laundry is located inside a pantry that is right next to my kitchen. It’s an odd shaped pantry, as it sits in the middle of my house. It’s almost shaped like a triangle. My pantry, well, let’s just say, it was LONG overdue for a very good clean out. Oh the humanity! I found jelly jars circa 2003 in there. Phew! As I was waiting for the dryer to be delivered, I decided that I would finally tackle the pantry issue. Yes, you read that right. I tackled the issue by spending the past week or two in there cleaning it out. Every chance I got, every waking moment when I wasn’t working or brushing my teeth, I was in there working on my pantry. Oh, it was a chore, let me tell you. I wound up getting ride of two full recycling bins, two full garbage bins, and I took a car load of stuff over to the Goodwill drop off place. Oh, and it’s still full, even after all of that. Who knew I had 18 packages of toilet paper and 9 tubes of toothpaste? Not me, that’s for sure!

Unfortunately, I don’t have a before and after image, as I didn’t think to take a picture of the wreck that was my pantry circa June of this year. I did manage to play with the iPhone a bit along the journey, and I got some shots of the complete, now tidy and well stocked pantry and, of course, the spiffy new cloths dryer, which came today by the way. So, bottom line? I now have a clean pantry, a bunch of iPhone images, oh, and a new cloths dryer. Ain’t life grand?

I hope you’re doing well in this time of lock down. Here are the shots along my journey into cloth dryer ownership, aka, “the great cloths dryer insertion incident of 2020.” You can follow along on my descent into madness: