Entry 7: It's His Way of Saying, "Stop Being So Anal!"

Song of the Moment: No Letting Go by Wayne Wonder

Being the neat freak that I am, I was so elated to check in (even for one night) at a suite in Somerset. I have my own kitchen (which I won’t be able to use anyway), a microwave, a toaster... And a washing machine! Yahoo!

I was texting Enzo earlier, saying I was too lazy to go explore Ho Chi Minh and I wanted to just stay indoors for an hour or two. But the truth was, it wasn’t because I was too lazy or tired. It’s really because I got so excited over the washing machine, I decided to start washing all my dirty clothes! (Yeah, I know. Crazy girl. I ate lunch a bit late for that.)

If you can recall Entry 1, I talked about having a complete wardrobe plan. What is it, you ask? It’s basically a well-thought out matrix of bottoms+shirt pairing, to ensure there were no fashion repeats during the trip. (Which doesn’t really matter because I’m hardly on the photos.)  I labeled articles of clothing as “Black Pants 1” or “Shirt 1.” So for example, on day 1, I wore Denims 1 with Shirt 1. Day 2 was Brown Pants 1 with Shirt 2. Etc. (Waaaiiitt... Don’t gasp just yet.) Included in the wardrobe plan were provisions for wash days --- like how I really planned to wash Bottoms 1 and Shirts 1 to 4 at Somerset, and wash other articles at Crisel’s apartment. It’s really unnecessary planning at its best, but I guess if you know me well enough, that’s just the way I am especially if I have no intervention from people who will contest on the basis of weirdness.

Anyway, back to the laundry.

I figured out the Whirlpool washer without much trouble. Snaps for me. And I was watching the clothes tumble and turn inside the washer... Oh therapy indeed.

Fast forward to post-drying. When I was taking out the clothes piece by piece, I had a big smirk on my face because they all smelled so good, and they were already dry! I had the ironing board ready, with the iron plugged and heated. *Hissss* Oh yes. That must mean my iron’s ready.

I pulled out Brown Pants 2, shook my head at the unsightly creases and started to iron it.

*Hissssss* NOOOOOOO!

I burned it. I can’t believe I burned one of my favorite brown pants, after all those years of successfully ironing silk to chiffon to cotton to denim. Apparently, that hissing sound wasn’t the natural sound of escaping steam from the iron. It meant that the iron was overheating. And it didn’t take two seconds to burn through my brown pants. My brown pants became unfittingly grunge with burn holes on the knees.

AAAAAAAHHHH!

What of the pairing plan for Brown Pants 2 next week? I’ll have to redo my wash day provisions too! Oh no! Oh no!

Hehehehe. Believe me, those things seriously went through my head the minute the burn happened. But then I stopped short, and started laughing to myself. What the heck. That’s one less article off my luggage weight. And this’ll be my gift to leave behind to beloved Ho Chi Minh.

So I’m letting go of my favorite brown pants. Just like that. I’ll leave it here in Ho Chi Minh, where someone might decide to use it in spite of the huge burns or cut it down to scrap fabrics for handicrafts.    

Ladies and gentlemen, that was how Someone out there hit me in the head and said, “Stop being so anal!”