Beware The Exploding Pillow

This is a cautionary tale and not one about feather pillows.

I recently wrote about my successful housecleaning foray, which happened a week ago and is only today being taken up again…. The action had to be paused because; (1) I had to spend time and effort congratulating myself on a decent start, (2) I had to go back to work at the Gallery, (3) I sat oddly with my feet tucked up under me one evening after work and somehow twisted my back so that I could not perform ANY task without explosive sound effects which scared Perkins, the Super Swimmer Dog, AND (4) to resume cleaning, I decided to wash the dog’s pillow.

As far as I could tell there was nothing wrong with this ugly small, flattened, square throw pillow other than it was striped in colors not used elsewhere in the house, was old, came from who knows where (I certainly hadn’t made any effort to acquire it), and it was surely basted with years of dog drool. Whether or not Cloyde had valued it, those factors relegated it to the dog’s use.

You see, Perkins the Super-Swimmer Dog likes to swim in Perkins Creek, just outside my back door (Which Cloyde always called the front door – but I no longer have to argue with him about that).  When she comes in the house from her swim, she might get off with a hose-down outside if it was high tide. But, if the tide was low, she is laden with marsh mud and the lovely aroma that accompanies it which surely requires a shampoo and conditioning in the downstairs shower. Although she must do a thorough shake-off behind the shower curtain, she always manages one or two more in the bathroom-proper before I can “dry her off” with a ragged old towel. An additional towel is needed for the complete mop-down of all vertical and horizontal surfaces in the bathroom. Since she won’t stand still for the hair dryer, the next step is turning her loose in the house where she runs all around rubbing against the edges of the furniture, and my pants legs, and rolling around on the area rugs. After she is rewarded with dinner or a treat, she heads for the living room sectional sofa.

I’m not worried about this couch so much because it is a lovely off-white specimen that I inherited from my parents and I cannot tell you how many innocent Naugas were sacrificed for their hydes to recover it (twice). Nevertheless, I spread a beach towel over one-third of it, along with her pillow leaning against the arm for her to retire upon. While I can launder the dog towels, vacuum the couch, and wipe it down with 409 or some other cleaner, the pillow is something else. So, as long as I was on this cleaning spree, before going to bed, I decided to toss the throw pillow into the washing machine along with a couple of work shirts, towels, and a bathmat.

In the morning, I went to move the contents from the washer into the dryer and was horrified to discover everything covered in mounds of some sort of cottonish fiber clumps and the sad remains of a now clean striped cloth shell. I began scooping out the soggy stuffing and peeling large deposits of it off the other items in the load as I transferred them into the dryer. I wiped out the remaining bits from the inside of the washing machine’s tub, believing the dryer’s lint catcher would capture most of the remaining debris from the towels, etc. And so, I refilled the washing machine with a couple of fairly new summer knit tunic tops, slacks, and other personal items, turned on the dryer and bounced off to other endeavors.

Some time later, I realized I would have to go out in a couple of hours and recalled that the slacks and shirt I’d planned to wear were still in the washer. I checked the dryer to make sure those items were dry and ready to come out but found them still a little damp and so I thought, “Well, I’ll just add the two shirts and the slacks to that load and turn it back on for about 20 minutes.”

I can’t tell you what happened. I hadn’t noticed any fluff left in the dryer when I’d turned it back on with the added items. But, I sure noticed it when I went to check on them and found those two knit shirts completely fleeced, inside and out. I found something else to wear and left that situation to be resolved later!

So, today, I focused on that troubleshooting. I removed everything from the dryer, shook it out, emptied the lint catcher, put everything back in, and hoped for a better outcome following 20 minutes more of tumble drying. The towels, slacks, and other stuff shook out well, but it appears those summer kit tunics might now count as permanent fleece wear, kind of like a pet Husky, bound to be covered with ever-regenerating fleece that floats off everywhere, yet remains.

And the real mystery is, how could that completely flattened 10 x 10” pillow have managed to overfill an entire tall kitchen plastic bag and STILL be showing up in every room downstairs?