Flotsam, Jetsam, Lagan & Derelict

There is a terrible, terrible lie among us.  A societal untruth that is running rampant.  It’s gone viral.  Whether this deception is deliberate is unclear.  What is clear is that I have uncovered one of the great myths of our age:

Girls change clothes more than boys.

HA!  Unequivocally false.  Categorically counterfactual.  Studies suggest the exact opposite to be true.

Boys seem to ruin their clothes at every meal, every recess, every art project leading to a teacher-induced wardrobe change 2-5 times… per day.  Little baggies of dirty dungarees come home like a never-ending stream of care packages.  Sometimes the reason is “his shirt got wet.”
“Pardon me?”
“We had to change his shirt because it got wet.”
“I’m fairly certain it’s 85 degrees out in San Jose in June… it’ll dry.”
Meanwhile they unwittingly deliver load after load of unnecessary laundry… in case we’re looking for something to do all weekend.

Tonight I was doing laundry and James asks me, “Did you check the pockets for rocks?”
“Mmmm, no.”

Meanwhile, every night I find a rock or two somewhere— next to the coffee maker, on the windowsill, perched at the foot of Jake’s bed.  I stealthily sneak to the backdoor, make sure there are no little eyes on me, and then quickly chuck these stones into our neighbor’s crazy high school ivy that is advancing into our side yard.

So I put the wet laundry into the dryer and discover the following abundance of riches abducted from Room 4 in the bottom of our washing machine:

That’s five rocks, a small bit of gravel, three plastic golf tees, a princess mirror, and an unidentifiable grey shield-shaped piece of plastic.  Oh, and a little purple rubber ducky.  I blindly grabbed the ducky in the depths of the dark washing machine… which after Grandma’s story of washing Jake’s underpants while I was out of town… stopped me dead in my tracks.

You’ll have to ask her to tell you that story.