Blanket

I am sad to say that I possess no home-making skills whatsoever. It is true my mother does not know how to cook, but that can be explained because during our 10-year residence in Indonesia, we had maids who cooked for us. Therefore, I was never taught how to cook a single dish in my life aside from frying a couple of eggs or microwaving something. However, my mother takes good care of her home, making sure it is clean, dust-free, and comfortable to be in. Only until I came to live with Danish did I learn how to do laundry! In my defense, I keep a real clean apartment with decent decor - it's quite cozy here!

With that being said, I have a ridiculous story to share. Danish and I bought this expensive and incredibly soft comforter which has served us well in the last few months we have had it. I mentioned a few times my desire to give it a good wash so we could sleep in a clean, fresh blanket. Finally this past week I woke up and heaved the blanket off to the washing machine, poured a capful of detergent, closed the lid, and set it to "extra heavy." Not more than 5 minutes later, the washing machine began to shake violently and make such curious noises which could only mean something terrible has happened. Upon opening the washing machine, I saw to my horror fluffs of white blanket stuffing springing out of a giant tear from where the blanket had caught on the inside of the lid. I had destroyed our beloved blanket. Of course Danish couldn't believe it, either. He reprimanded me like father would a child as he proceeded to take the wet, torn blanket out of the washing machine and deposit it into a garbage bag.

At that moment neither of us had any brilliant ideas about what to do with the ruined blanket except to throw it away. After I had told my mother about the incident, she said I should have kept it and that she would have stitched it up and used it. I would never allow for my mom to use a second-rate blanket no matter how wonderful it was before the incident. But we did realize how wasteful it was of us to just do away with it; we could have donated it to the homeless shelter. So the next day I made Danish go dumpster diving! Yes, the man retrieved that blanket from the smelly dumpster and brought it in from the cold. Since it was discarded while still wet, the blanket had frozen! We left it in the garbage bag and set it in the living room to thaw.

Well, I came home today and opened up the bag, spread out the wet, seemingly dirty blanket covered in sad fluff, and quickly performed a shoddy stitch job to the tear. I forced it into the dryer, this time being mindful that it didn't catch on the inside of the door. It has been about two hours now and the reject blanket is still wet. Geez, I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. I'm fortunate to be with someone as patient as Danish who consoled me by saying the homeless would still appreciate it. As far as the cooking...I will get it someday, right? Those things take time, a trial and error deal. At least we live in a clean, cozy apartment...I just need to take extra precaution with things like laundry I suppose. Whatever.