Another Busy Day

Nothing to do with today's post, but a nice picture of the Seattle Art Museum camels

Several years ago, I had a patient, a very nice somewhat elderly (i.e, older  than I) man as a patient.  He was fumbling about with his cell phone, and obviously didn’t know how to use it.  I'm sure that I didn’t say, “How can you possibly not know how to use your cell phone?” because I absolutely understand how one can not know how to use one’s cell phone.  But somehow, an explanation seemed, to him at least, necessary.  He told me that it was a new one and he hadn’t quite mastered it yet.  He went on to further explain that he had recently washed his old one in the washing machine.  Now I understand how a cat can accidentally get in the dryer, but….   He said that he has a pair of those pants with lots of pockets – just the type I was gardening in (today, not then, of course.) He had gone through his pockets, before washing them, but apparently not well enough.  I thought of that man today.

I had been out planting bulbs in the rain.  I had debated about what to wear, and then decided that as it was laundry day, I would just wear the pair of pants I had on, the one pair I have that fits, and then do the laundry.  I planted my bulbs and felt very industrious and virtuous to boot, and came in, all muddy, to take a shower and do the laundry.  First, as it was “clean sheet day,” I washed the white, and then the dark.  I didn’t really have enough dark for a load, but I went around the house looking for semi-dirty things to wash.  Somehow, that assuages my guilt about a half full load of washing.  Later, as a reward for all this activity, I made a cup of tea and settled down with my book.  I realized I needed to text a friend, and reached into my pocket (of my second favorite pants, which don’t fit,) for my phone.  My heart sank.  It was that feeling when a sudden realization makes your stomach feel as though it is dropping with a clunk down deep into your lower innards.  How could I be so stupid?  Then I looked over to where I had been when I took off my pants for my shower, and there they were, hanging over the chair where I had slung them.  I realized that I had been really stupid, and gathered up that pile of colored clothes and washed them, totally forgetting to put in the main thing I had wanted to wash!  My cell phone was safe!  Sometimes too much efficiency can be a bad thing.

Likewise, only a pumpkin instead of camels