Wednesday, July 18, 2012

*Pong!*

I messed up royally tonight.  Badly enough that I can still smell it. 

I put in a laundry mid-morning yesterday consisting of mainly polyester items (soccer jerseys, shorts, socks) and I apparently found better things to do from the moment the wash cycle ended all the way to 5:30 this afternoon before I thought to flip it.  Grace had a game tonight at 6:30 and needed her gear.  I opened the door and *pong!* there it was.  If you have any British background you may recognize *pong* as a word bubble word for something that smells terribly horribly bad.  I did what any good mother would do and Febreezed the *pong!* out of it (Febreezed now a verb, thank you) and threw it in the dryer, on high heat for 20 minutes with fingers, toes, eyes crossed that it would work.  Well, 20 minutes later the Febreeze did take, but only as a compliment to the *pong!* - it did not eliminate the offending odour.  We were getting close to game time and panic was setting in.  Grace threw the jersey on and ran upstairs to do what any 10 year would do in a similar situation - she raided my perfume collection.  Questionably, but thankfully, she rejected my Chanel No. 19, Coco Chanel, Occitane and my precious, precious, to the point of being curated, bottles of Jo Malone (first thing to be saved in case of a fire, truth).  She zeroed in on a sample size of Sickly Sweet by Victoria's Secret (honestly, I get cavities when I smell it).  This fragrance would attract folks who exist to single handedly fund One (or is it 1?) Direction, TigerBeat magazine, and ICarly.  She didn't follow the rule of Spritz and Walk through the mist either.   Rather, she sprayed a visible amount on (seeing perfume one oneself is never a good thing) and said Let's Go!  At this point she smelled like a petrie dish gone rogue at an air freshener making factory.  And I was in a pickle. Do I take her to the game and let her add her own sweat to the *pong!*, Febreeze and perfume creation?  Or do I deny her her love of the game?  Opting to power through it,  we got in the car, (and by car I mean mini-van, with its own olfactory challenges) driving there with the windows down, way down.  When we arrived, I nervously tittered to the other moms what had happened, knowing full well that the odour could not be ignored.  They sympathetically smiled and said things like it happens, we've all been there.  But I live in Oakville, a place where I don't really believe people would ever allow such a thing happen.  I am a new breed to this somewhat unnatural habitat.

Long winded, but I have since washed the gear and the bouquet of *pong!*, Febreeze and Victoria's Secret is still there - my point of this post being does anyone know how to get nasty smells out of laundry?  Help.

4 comments:

Jen said...

1 Cup of vinegar on hot, then again with 1/2 cup of baking soda on hot. Pinned it. :)

Lynn said...

Oh, poor, poor Grace! Hilarious story, though. Let us know if that vinegar thing works.

Anonymous said...

One word: Fire.

- Your friendly neighbourhood curator.

Louise said...

Loved this post! Thank you for the giggle, snort. In my laundry room hangs the sign, "Success is getting the clothes in the dryer BEFORE the mildew sets in"