December 16, 2016 – The mystery of the disappearing sheet

          At our first house here in North Carolina, I had an old fashioned clothesline.  [Martha Stewart calls it a “drying yard”.]

          Yes, the sunshine actually does bleach out clothes hung to dry, which I find helpful on the dish towels.  Both of us grew up as children with rough towels from line drying.  We still enjoy our bedsheets crisp from the clothesline permeated with the fresh air.  It still gives us a cheap country thrill smelling clothesline fresh laundry.

          That house had the perfect set up for a clothesline.  Washer and dryer in the basement with the basement door 20 feet away opening on the back yard.  The line was affixed to the back of the house and strung to a utility pole about 30 feet away.   It had full sun shine and was hardly noticeable from the road.

          My typical Saturday back then was cleaning the house top to bottom as I commuted to work during the week.  I would strip the bed of sheets, remake it, and do the laundry in between cleaning bathrooms, the kitchen, vacuuming and dusting.  I would cut fresh flowers for the kitchen table and the last chore was run out to the grocery store for the weekly shopping.

          Usually while I was out grocery shopping my husband would come home from his golf game and mow the lawn.

          My husband is an artist when it comes to mowing the lawn.  When it is freshly mown there are those two-tone stripes much like you see when you watch professional baseball on TV.  The house was perfectly situated so that when you drove down the lane you could see the symmetrical mowing lines.  It is a private country delight to see a beautifully mowed lawn with those green two-tone stripes.

          The next Saturday when I strip the bed and attempt to remake it with the sheets I laundered from the week before, I find that I am missing the bottom designer sheet that perfectly coordinates with the bedspread and pillow shams.  I had bought them as a complete set.  ‘HMMMM’, I wonder.  Maybe it is still in the basement waiting to be washed as I didn’t have a full load.  I found an alternative set of sheets and made up the bed.

          Later that day, I am taking down the warm laundry from the sun drenched clothesline area and folding them as I put them in the laundry basket.   My husband is cleaning and putting up the lawn mower nearby.

          “I’ve lost a sheet, you seen it?”  I call to him.

          He turns with a mischievous smile on his face.

          “What?”  I ask.

          “The lawn mower ate it,” he says bluntly.

          What!” I say surprised.

          “Yeah, I was running full tilt trying to get the lawn mowed last week before you got home.  I was ducking under the clothesline and the sheet got sucked off the line and up under the blade.  Almost took me with it.”  He said.

          I am amazed he hadn’t said anything the week before.

          “It choked the motor.  Took me forever to untangle it from the blade.” He said.

          “And, where is the sheet?” I venture.

          “Honey, it’s shredded.  I stuffed it under my work bench.  It will make good rags.”

          Mystery solved.