My sister, my dad and I picked up the slack when Mom passed. I did the daily housekeeping, my Dad did the menu planning and heavy lifting, my sister had to resume the tasks my mom had taken on with her daughter. A few things were eliminated. Laundry was sent out for the most part and came back clean and folded. There were exceptions to the rule. My sister paid me to wash her nursing uniforms with the agreement that in addition to the fee, the pocket change was mine. Once a week I would roll the big old wringer machine to the sink, wash her uniforms, and hang them over the bathtub to "drip-dry". It was quite profitable for me.
On one occasion we had a serious snow storm and there was no way to get the laundry to the laundermat. So, in addition to the uniforms, I did the family laundry. My dad had retired from the police force and was working construction. He took the subway to work each day and felt it was necessary for his work clothes to be presentable. When mom was around, this meant everything was ironed, including the ever-present handkerchief.
I washed my Dad's work clothes and discovered one of his shirts still had black stains on the sleeves. I gave the shirt another run-through, but the black stains remained. Admitting defeat has never been one of my virtues. I took out our largest glass bowl, positioned the shirt so just the sleeves were in the bowl and covered them with (readers of my previous blog can guess) full strength Clorox and left it to soak. I busied myself with other household chores and ran to the stores to get dinner (I lived in the city, all the stores were a block away). When I returned with my purchases I went to check on the shirt. The sleeves were GONE! The Clorox was all murky and the cuff buttons lay at the bottom of the bowl. The sleeves had dissolved! We were at the dawn of the commercial use of rayon, dacron and polyester. My Dad had purchased the shirt himself for the first time in his married life. He thought that the non-wrinkling properties of a synthetic fiber would be good since no one would be ironing his work clothes. He did not foresee melting as a factor. His initial reaction was what you would expect, but fortunately, he wasn't too happy with the synthetic material. The practice of the day dictated he wear it until it was no longer wearable. My sister offered to hem the remainder of the sleeves and convert the shirt to short sleeves. In the end, he cut off the buttons and added them to the button box, and first time in his life disposed of salvageable clothing.
Those early synthetics did not allow your skin to breathe, they were extremely flammable and the remnants of that shirt probably still survive in a landfill somewhere. Although I was sorry to have ruined the shirt I was amazed at the result of my efforts. I can tell you this for sure..I got rid of those black stains!
PS: I wish I had a time-lapse video of those shirt sleeves disappearing.
