Let’s talk about laundry. It’s ever present. It can be dirty, clean, or this weird in-between state of uncertainty of its cleanness status because you haven’t actually folded laundry in a couple months and so you aren’t sure if it’s in the “to be folded” pile because it’s clean or because your kids randomly put it there after wearing it all around outside and wiping their noses on it. There is this Newton’s Law of Laundry that states “No matter how much you wash or fold, there will always be a random pile of laundry somewhere is the house in various stages of clean.” Then add in sick kids and GOOD LUCK. There is no hope for anyone in the house having anything to wear. Have you ever pulled out the hand-me-down boxes because your kids don’t have anything clean to wear in the moment so something is better than nothing? Been there done that.

I don’t know what happened, typically you don’t get sick in the summer, but there were three weeks back to back to back that my little ones were sick. As a result, the house was overrun with laundry. One day during this chaos, I was trying to wash some clothes so everyone could have something to wear until I got the whole laundry fiasco under control. So I went around the house and gathered up as many clothes as I could reasonably fit into the washer, which ended up being a pretty good amount. I triumphantly started the wash feeling pretty good about myself having accomplished that one small victory in the chaos of sick kids.

Later that night (because that was the earliest I could get to it) after bathing the kids up and before showering myself, I went to switch the laundry into the dryer. I started taking the clothes out and to my horror realized that a lot of the clothes had this weird green tie dye stain on them! I racked my brain for what could have caused one of my daughters white dresses to now be various shades of yellow and green tie dye. Was it a new shirt or something I washed by accident? No. Was it bleach? No, that wouldn’t make everything green and yellow. The only thing I could think of was “Did I accidentally wash a pen?” After pulling more clothes out and assessing the extent of the damage, I finally found the culprit. A GREEN PEN. Talk about the cherry on top.

I’m pretty good at getting stains out, it’s kinda my special talent, but this was well beyond the scope I was accustomed to! If it had been a simple pen mark I would have sprayed some hair spray on it. But I didn’t have enough hair spray for a load of laundry…so I thought, “I always use hand sanitizer or hairspray to get out pen stains, what if I used rubbing alcohol??” I went and grabbed the rubbing alcohol, plugged the drain in our bath tub and emptied the entire bottle, then I put all the clothes in the tub and soaked them. Finally, fingers crossed, I rewashed the pen stained clothes. To my great relief and astonishment, it worked!! My daughters white dress was no longer green and yellow tie dye, and the rest of the clothes had returned to their rightful colors as well! So what was the overarching lesson I had learned from this? Make sure to check all sweatshirt pockets before washing, especially if it’s your husbands