Did the Washing Machine Throw Up?

I think that I learned a mighty big lesson this weekend. That lesson is to check everything before putting it in the washing machine.

When unloading the washing machine yesterday, these mysterious gel-like substances started appearing in the clothes. They were almost like little styrofoam balls, but they were clear and jelly-like. The further I got down to the bottom of the machine, they were more frequent. I started to wonder what in the world it could be - I go through all the pockets when I do the laundry, but this was strange, and what could produce something that looked like these little gel balls?

When I got to the bottom of the machine, I found the culprit. A pull-up had somehow not been taken out of someone's pajama bottoms. It had gotten thrown in there and stayed inside those pajama bottoms somehow. Generally, those are removed before they make their way into the laundry basket, and being that it had gone unnoticed, I figure that the girl who had used that pull-up had not done any sort of pee damage to it, making it dry and not heavy, and therefore, it got tossed in.

Upon finding the culprit, I exclaimed to the family what I found, and they all looked at it in disbelief. It was a strange sight, I have to say. I then sort of chucked it onto our already dying front lawn because I just couldn't hold it any longer and didn't know what to do because these gel balls were falling out of it like wildfire. It was just so, um, unpleasant.

As it layed there on the dying grass, I couldn't help but think it looked like a sad little pull-up that had somehow been filled with shaved ice. See for yourself:


The moral of this story? Check everything before putting it in the washing machine. Seriously. I have now dealt with two washing machine debactles: crayons and pull-ups. I put that load through two more times just to be on the safe side and was happy to find no more gel balls.

If there are any practical jokers out there who are looking for a new trick, here's and easy one for you to do. Take a pull-up, put it in the washing maching, then find a paper snow cone cup, fill it up with the contents of the pull-up, and add some food coloring. Fun times there, I bet. Just make sure that pull-up wasn't used before you put it in the washing machine.