Hand washables tip of the day

Hand washables tip of the day

Oh, today [which is probably your tomorrow] is a jubilant, joyful, very good, wonderful kind of day–because, because, because, because, BEcAUsE–pause–

[You should be singing a specific song right about now…]

–because Handsome Dude figured out how to connect me to Blogger.

Ta-da.

Which doesn’t seem like a big deal except for I’m not where I usually am.

I’ve been planning for months how I was going to blog whilst visiting this particular corner of the world — we’re in China — and completely forgot that such things are largely impossible for a variety of reasons which are unclear to me but don’t need to be clear because it’s their country and they are the bosses of it.

Besides all of that, I’m a guest here and don’t ever want to be a less than gracious one.

Alrighty.

Handsome Dude called one evening last month to say that he and his group of researchers were going to stay overnight in their location.

[“Location” is the word I used. “Forest instrumentation–installing weather stations in the jungles of the Uintah Mountains” is what it really was. Translation: they were grubby, muddy, dirty, and tired from a long day in the field.]

It was unanticipated–which meant the whole lot of them didn’t have a change of clothes. Or anything. Not a big deal for a bunch of hard workin’ dudes. Well–mostly not a big deal–but who wants to find a laundromat to wash their unmentionables in the late hours of evening?

[I know men don’t call their unmentionables unmentionables. Let’s go with ‘underwears. And yes, I like the plural–it adds a little bit of the hilly-billy to the situation.  Five hard workin’ smelly earthy dudes who’d just as soon fall asleep where they’re sitting — or standing — I’ve seen this done — as undress and go to bed.  You know it.]

So here’s the tip of the day.

1-If you end up staying overnight somewhere unexpectedly and don’t have an extra pair of underwears [I suppose a 72-hour kit could include undies though I can’t imagine]–hand wash the item(s).

2-Use a bar of soap, shampoo, or hand soap.  Or even a wet wipe.  ~grin~

[To use a wet wipe simply close the sink drain, run the water over the wet wipe, and wring it out.  Don’t drain the sink. You might need to use two or three–but it works.]

3-Close the sink drain and begin filling the sink with warm water.  (If you were washing an item that really required hand washing, you would use cold-cool water.)

4-Before the sink fills with water, add your soap.
If it’s hand soap, squirt it in.
If it’s shampoo, pour it in.
If it’s a bar of soap, wait just a minute to do anything with it.

5-If the soap hasn’t dispersed, swish the water with your hand until it does.

6-Immerse your underwears in the water.

7-If you’re using a bar of soap, lather up the soap in your hands.

8-Wash, wash, wash–using whatever form of soap you have.

[It takes less than a minute.]

9-Wring the item out. [Except you would never, ever do this if it was a genuine and true hand washable to prevent stretching/distorting the fabric in any way–we’re doing this because it’s underwears that isn’t precious underwears.]  ~grin~ Wring it out. Or smoosh the water out — it doesn’t matter. Just eliminate as much of the excess water as you can.

[Okay–so you understand that if you’re washing your underwears it means you’re underwears-less which means drying time might seem like an eternity.]

Here’s what I do to decrease the drying time.

–>Grab a dry towel and lay it out on the bed.

–>Put your washed item on the towel.

[Because I long to be Handsome Dude’s one and true love of ever I shan’t be displaying pictures of my knickers. Or his.]

–>Lay the item out and smooth.

I’m particular about this part when it’s a real and true hand washable. I don’t spend as much time ironing when the item is dry if I take an extra 30 seconds to make sure big wrinkles and fold-overs are absent.

–>Take the bottom of the towel and start folding [or rolling] it up.

–>Keep folding. Or rolling.

–>And folding or rolling.

–>Once you get to that point, place the towel on the floor [without unfolding it].

–>Now walk with little mincing sideways steps the length of the towel.