One Thing Leads to Another

There are always consequences to everything we do. Kind of like the proverbial pebble that is thrown in the pond. This little life lesson was brought home to me today in the story I will now relate: The Saga of Navy Shirt.

A few weeks ago I bought a navy blue shirt. We'll call it Navy Shirt for short. As with all new clothes, I loved Navy Shirt so much that I had to wear it a few days in a row (as long as I wouldn't be seeing the same people more than once, of course, and as long as it didn't get too smelly).

So I was wearing Navy Shirt one Saturday when suddenly, out of nowhere, the motivation to clean the kids' bathroom just came to me. Probably from the sanitation gods, who can only take so much you know.

All was good. I was feeling quite pleased with myself until I looked down at my shirt and found a bleach stain on Navy Shirt! Is there anything worse than a bleach stain? Bleach does not forgive. There is no going back or getting it out. Not very smart, Kasey. So Navy Shirt sat on top of my dryer for a week or so while I mourned.

Then I thought, well it's solid navy blue. I could just buy some dye and voila! Brilliant.

The shirt spent a Saturday in a bucket of dye and I rinsed and rinsed and rinsed and wrung all the dye out of it until my hands were raw. I threw it in the wash with some colored clothes and everything seemed to come out ok except for a pair of Evan's pants that now have a slightly different hue.

I pulled Navy Shirt out but what did I see? That dumb bleach stain! Still there! If someone had taken a picture, this is how my face would have looked:

Navy Shirt sat on top of my dryer for another few weeks while I fumed about it.

Then today I was doing another load of colored laundry and just threw everything dark and colored into the washing machine and--unbeknownst to me--Navy Shirt. I had forgotten it was there under all the mess of clothes.

As the kids and I were folding laundry, I found Navy Shirt. And then I found Emma's purple top...... "But wait, that doesn't look like her purple top. What shirt is that? Is that her cute little pink shirt? The one that is not pink any longer?"

To my shame, I must admit, I started laughing. I don't know why. It just seemed awful and funny at the same time. Emma saw her shirt and burst into tears. Suddenly the pink shirt was her favorite shirt in the entire world and it was ruined forever. No other shirt would ever be the same as the pink shirt with the bunny on it. I started to realize that perhaps I should stop laughing. Immediately.

So now we have two ruined shirts and the bathroom is dirty once again. You can find your own moral to this story. But here's mine: save your shirts and your daughter's mental health and just don't clean the bathroom. Because, hey, it's just going to get dirty again.