Crayons in the dryer

Yeah.

So, because we do a lot of sledding in these parts, thereby resulting in lots of wet coats/snowpants/hats/gloves/scarves, we often throw them in the dryer afterwards. And, because I never think to check pockets beforehand, well, we had ourselves a little rainbow in our dryer yesterday as a result.

So, as any good mother does when faced with a conundrum such as this, I googled a solution for both my dryer and the clothing. Here's what I did in case this ever happens to you. For the dryer, you run it on a hot setting for about 15 minutes to warm it up, and then use some sort of solution to wipe it out with a cloth once it's warm. I used "Awesome", but it seems you could use a variety of solutions to wipe it out once it's warm. Good as new.

The clothing mishap, however, required a cocktail which I didn't have on hand, so I had to run to my local Wal Mart to purchase some Borax and OxiClean.

I don't know about you, but do you ever leave Wal Mart feeling just a little bit dirty, like you need to take a shower? Was it the store itself,  or the fact of it being 6 days before Christmas that was causing more arms to be nearly yanked out of their shoulder sockets than you normally witness? Or daggers shot through children via Mom's eyes after her heels are run into from the shopping cart. Ok, I'll give her that one. That really pisses me off too.

And I try not to judge on this, because I am certain I have been in stores and appeared much uglier towards my children than I'd want to and not made eye contact with anyone because my kids were making me so crazy I was going to rush right home and list them on Ebay, with no reserve.

But when you are watching it happen to someone else's kid you just feel sort of, well, dirty afterwards.

Wait a minute, I didn't take a shower today. Hmm...so maybe I really just was feeling rightfully dirty. Heck, I didn't even have a bra on during this shopping escapade, so actually, I suppose I was right where I belonged.

So, long story short, I got the cocktail, which was this: roughly 1 cup each of laundry detergent, vinegar, liquid Shout, Borax and OxiClean. Use hot water, let it all soak for a few hours, and then run the load. Amazingly, it got the crayon out, and I am telling you, their coats and snowpants were covered in all colors of crayon. I was actually pretty amazed.

What did our forefathers do without Google?