I swear there is something wrong with my brain
if my head weren't screwed on something something
I like to let my laundry wait until the last minute. That is, I don't wash anything until I absolutely have to. Sunday night, I was not only wearing my last pair of pants, but my last pair of socks too.
So I loaded up the laundry basket and headed for the laundry room here in my apartment building. I dumped the clothes in a couple of the machines, soaped 'em up, dropped in some change and let 'er go. Half an hour later, I dutifully returned to transfer each load from its washing machine to a dryer. That was to be the last I'd see of my pants and socks that night.
You see, the laundry room in my building closes at 9, and doesn't open again until 9 the next morning. I guess this is to prevent people from operating noisy machines during hours the neighbors may wish to be sleeping, so during the hours it's closed, the doors are locked.
It was 7 p.m. when I started the dryers -- plenty of time to come back, get the clothes out and be done with it. But of course, I forgot all about it. I'm the kind of person who frequently forgets, well, lots of things; engagements, shaving, wearing shirts right side out, etc. I sincerely think that, many times, my brain is working against me. I imagine my subconscious thought process went something like this: "Pants! Who needs pants? We can just tear up that 'retrieve pants from dryer' sticky note..."
The next morning, I had to wait until 9 to get clean pants and socks from the laundry room. Normally, I get to work at 9. Luckily, I have the kind of job where they don't really care what time I show up, as long as it's roughly business hours. I showered while waiting for the laundry room to open, and I used my last clean towel...
...so you can guess that this isn't the end of the story. The very next evening, I'm back in the laundry room putting a load of dirty bath towels in the machine. Half an hour later, I came back to move the towels to a dryer (I have no idea why I can remember to do THIS no problem). The next time I thought about it, it was half past midnight. Arg.
The bright side is that I got to sleep in an extra hour. Being unable to shower, I couldn't even start getting ready for work. So I slept. It was pretty nice. 9 o'clock did eventually roll around, though, and I got up, threw on some clothes, and groggily wandered down to the laundry room.
BUT THE TOWELS WEREN'T THERE! My first reaction was panic, and the thought that maybe someone had stolen my towels. Then I had a strange and vivid flashback of pulling towels out of the dryer last night, folding them there in the laundry room, and then stacking them neatly in my closet back in my apartment. Oh man. I walked quickly back to my apartment, threw open the closet, and sure enough there were my towels -- washed, dried, folded and stacked.
I'm not a drug user, and I've hardly ever drank, yet this kind of thing happens to me all the time. The only explanation I can think of is that there is something wrong with my brain. I think the part of my brain that's supposed to, you know, remember stuff, is too busy thinking about that one episode of Seinfeld where they used the phrase "stripped to the waist eating a block of cheese the size of a car battery" or, possibly, doing nothing at all. Or maybe aliens and/or a secret lobotomy are involved.
So I loaded up the laundry basket and headed for the laundry room here in my apartment building. I dumped the clothes in a couple of the machines, soaped 'em up, dropped in some change and let 'er go. Half an hour later, I dutifully returned to transfer each load from its washing machine to a dryer. That was to be the last I'd see of my pants and socks that night.
You see, the laundry room in my building closes at 9, and doesn't open again until 9 the next morning. I guess this is to prevent people from operating noisy machines during hours the neighbors may wish to be sleeping, so during the hours it's closed, the doors are locked.
It was 7 p.m. when I started the dryers -- plenty of time to come back, get the clothes out and be done with it. But of course, I forgot all about it. I'm the kind of person who frequently forgets, well, lots of things; engagements, shaving, wearing shirts right side out, etc. I sincerely think that, many times, my brain is working against me. I imagine my subconscious thought process went something like this: "Pants! Who needs pants? We can just tear up that 'retrieve pants from dryer' sticky note..."
The next morning, I had to wait until 9 to get clean pants and socks from the laundry room. Normally, I get to work at 9. Luckily, I have the kind of job where they don't really care what time I show up, as long as it's roughly business hours. I showered while waiting for the laundry room to open, and I used my last clean towel...
...so you can guess that this isn't the end of the story. The very next evening, I'm back in the laundry room putting a load of dirty bath towels in the machine. Half an hour later, I came back to move the towels to a dryer (I have no idea why I can remember to do THIS no problem). The next time I thought about it, it was half past midnight. Arg.
The bright side is that I got to sleep in an extra hour. Being unable to shower, I couldn't even start getting ready for work. So I slept. It was pretty nice. 9 o'clock did eventually roll around, though, and I got up, threw on some clothes, and groggily wandered down to the laundry room.
BUT THE TOWELS WEREN'T THERE! My first reaction was panic, and the thought that maybe someone had stolen my towels. Then I had a strange and vivid flashback of pulling towels out of the dryer last night, folding them there in the laundry room, and then stacking them neatly in my closet back in my apartment. Oh man. I walked quickly back to my apartment, threw open the closet, and sure enough there were my towels -- washed, dried, folded and stacked.
I'm not a drug user, and I've hardly ever drank, yet this kind of thing happens to me all the time. The only explanation I can think of is that there is something wrong with my brain. I think the part of my brain that's supposed to, you know, remember stuff, is too busy thinking about that one episode of Seinfeld where they used the phrase "stripped to the waist eating a block of cheese the size of a car battery" or, possibly, doing nothing at all. Or maybe aliens and/or a secret lobotomy are involved.