My husband came home from a brief deployment in the middle of April. This particular deployment was a surreal experience. First came the scant ten-hour notice that he would deploy, then came something much, much worse. The deployment was anything but typical, (for lack of a better term) but so was the reintegration period.
Prior to the deployment, I had made great progress in the area of laundry. My husband had finally become accustomed to emptying his pockets before tossing his pants in the laundry basket. It had taken quite a while to reach this point, and only four short months to undo the progress. When my husband returned and I began washing and drying for two again, it became clear that we were having a reintegration issue. Only this time, reintegration paid off.
Initially, I began stacking the golf tees, gum, nails, paper clips, receipts and money on a shelf, but with each new load of laundry, the items began to multiply. I needed a catch-all and reached for a small basket to collect the loot. As you can see from the picture, the basket is now full. What you see is eight months of items recovered from the laundry. I don't really care about the golf tees or the paper clips, but I'm delighted with the cold hard cash. So delighted that I have decided against retraining. At least for now. We'll pick it up again when a green pen explodes on my favorite white shirt, which is bound to happen at some point. For now, I'll gleefully pocket my laundered money. In addition to the bills on top (my latest score) there are many bills buried among all that change. I can't wait to dump the contents out and see what I've collected. I figure I'm at least $150 richer than I was eight months ago, and boy am I in need of a massage...
The next time my husband asks me where all of his money goes, I have the perfect answer:
The Dryer.
And it's absolutely true....
