It's that time! Huckleberry Tea is in with "This Aspen Girl"
Here ya go Huck.
(note-the stories you have been reading from huck were written some time ago, giving you kids the background info)

Laundry

My ex-boy/ friend called yesterday to see if he could come over to do his laundry. This is strange only because we have not spent any time alone in a couple weeks. I said yes, and came home from work to find him on my couch; a once familiar occurrence that I realized instantly was one of the many things that I missed now that we are “taking a break.”

I have always been picky about my laundry. It is the only aspect of cleaning that I’d rather not pay someone else to do. This is not because I love lugging my dirties to the laundry room or that I find folding clothes methodically calming. It is simply that I don’t think that other people do it right. After my knee surgery, my mother, God bless her, had to do everything for me, including my laundry. But, the whites seemed dingy, stains didn’t come out, and (this is the big one) she put my ski pants in the dryer! In the dryer?! “They’re going to shrink!” I whaled in my perfect bed-ridden whine. I began to cry (I have already mentioned that nonsensical crying is an undesirable side-effect of Percocet).

Because she is my mother, and because I looked terribly pathetic laid up on the couch wearing my hideous blood stained, anti-embolism post-surgery stocking, she did not kill me on the spot. She didn’t even dump the basket of clean clothes on the floor and head for the airport. Instead, she patiently took instructions and sorted whites from colors, added just the right amount of bleach to white cotton basics, and took my jeans to the dry cleaner (with creases please). And she hung my ski pants out to dry.

So ex-boy/ friend did his laundry (and don’t worry, I don’t tell other people how to clean their clothes), and I made dinner. I wondered if in addition to his heaping piles of dirty clothes, he had come over to launder our soiled relationship. But I resisted my natural instinct to immediately plunge into the subject and decided to butter the bread, have a glass of wine and let the untouched subject bubble under the surface, like the melting cheese in the lasagna baking in the oven.

Everything gets dirty over time. Day to day wear and tear is unavoidable. Without regular and thoughtful care things get discolored and dull. And then there are stains. They happen in an instant. Usually as a result of clumsiness, thoughtlessness or carelessness. Some stains, no matter what you do, just won’t come out. Things can penetrate so deep that no amount of love, “I’m sorry,” or Spray ‘n Wash can repair the damage. Most spills, however, can be lifted if they are attended to immediately.

It is my experience that while women often have a bottle of club soda in hand before the red wine glass hits the floor, men tend to leave things in the bottom of the hamper for days, even weeks, while stains set in. The reason for this difference in stain behavior? I have no idea, but it drives me, and most of the women I know, insane, and frequently causes sleepless nights and irrational behavior.

Recently my girlfriends and I spent the better part of an evening discussing how to approach one friend’s “stain,” and more importantly what to do about the offending male’s complete lack of desire to deal with it. Ideas from this testosterone-free brain trust ranged from prank calling to physical retaliation. Instead, relentless phone calling, sarcasm, insults and yelling were employed. As it turned out, this was not the best strategy for reparation, but it did appear to be rather cathartic.

I have, admittedly, been the perpetrator of a few stains in the past couple weeks. Alcohol and fresh wounds do not mix well, but I ignored my head and numbed my heart, and the result is stinging. So after dinner, ex-boy/ friend and I got a rag and some club soda and did a little cleaning up. The stains will come out, they were just thoughtless moments. The question that remains: Do we have enough bleach, and do we even have the desire, to turn our dingy basics back into bright whites?