Some Mistakes Come Out in the Wash

“Whose underwear are these?”

Cassandra was not pleased. She was giving me a whole host of looks as she held a pair of pink underwear precariously on the tippiest tips of her fingers.

They hung in the air like the moment.

I was decidedly lucky. While she was horribly upset, even aghast, she was at least giving me time to explain. I was pleased with that, but still on edge. This was uncharted territory. What was the problem? Someone else’s underwear was in our laundry?

How do I explain this? Is there an explanation?

I must have taken a moment stunned in silence. She just stared at me. I was actively searching for something to connect me back to the main land, the sanity and the nearly idyllic existence I had a minute ago. I had been preparing supper and had just sat down after putting it in the oven. I had thirty minutes to kick back and watch tv, but now I was grasping at straws, at threads, to understand something that I couldn’t comprehend. After a moment, I attempted to calm her saying, “They have to be yours unless I didn’t notice there was something left in the washer or dryer.”

We live in an apartment. I have others to blame. That could be my salvation. That could be my way out. Maybe they belonged to the girl upstairs. Is this why she’s on edge? Is Cassandra worried that there’s something going on with the neighbor. . . the slender 20 something who had once used our phone?

It makes sense she’d be a little worried. Cassandra had not been happy that night to awaken to the sound of two voices (mine and our neighbor’s–what even is her name?)in our living room. She had locked herself out in the “middle of the night”. I had been watching Letterman. Cassandra was already fast asleep; she waited until after the 20 something had left to come out with her wild bed head and ask what that was all about.

Of course, I’d seen whatever her name is in the hallways. She always smiles at me. I’m nice enough to smile back. Isn’t that what being neighbors is? Perhaps Cassandra had seen this and read something (the wrong thing) into the exchanges. Those moments were innocent ones. I was just helping out a neighbor and being nice. Does all of this look different to her now?

“Do you think I’m cheating on you?” I asked. It probably was not my best move. Does asking that make her think I am or that I’m defending myself and I’m not? I don’t know. I’m lost here. Entirely lost.

“Well, it had crossed my mind.”

“Seriously?” I couldn’t imagine that she could really think so. We’d been together since high school–five years now. If she didn’t know me better than that would she ever?

“Well, not seriously, but it did cross my mind.”

I decided I’d go through the laundry and check to see if there was other evidence of someone else’s stuff in our basket. Socks get left behind all of the time, but underwear…that was a new one.

There was the culprit.

It all made sense now–I could now explain this all.

I washed one of her red socks with our whites. Some garments were pinker than others, but they all had at least a hint of the dreaded color under the right light. We were both right. They weren’t her underwear when they went into the wash, but they certainly were now. I had turned her underwear pink.

We laughed later (a lot later) about it and my ineptitude. At that moment we just felt relief; I was so happy to see a smile cross her face.

And now I no longer wash the whites. Some mistakes mean you get to avoid work in the future.