The Calling Card

Tonight was Laundry Night in room 326 of Angell Hall, and at the Culinary Institute of America, that involves playing with toxic chemicals that have labels specifically advising against mixing them. Despite these clear warnings from companies like Oxyclean and Clorox, mixing whitening agents is the closest thing to a school sport that the CIA has. Students all have their own combinations that they swear will make their chef whites whiter and remove more stains than any other. There is a well-known process for bleaching your whites, involving putting your concoction of whitening agents in a bucket, filling it with water in your room's shower, shoving your jackets in to soak, then taking them to the laundry room to wash. It's a very simple procedure (assuming you don't make a mix of chemicals that will set your room on fire or inebriate everyone on your floor), and most "American monkeys" can probably handle it. 

That being said, I blame the bleach fumes entirely for what transpired tonight. 

All was going well as my roommate Arbil (Babs) and I filled our bucket and soaked our jackets and aprons. It wasn't until we decided that instead of just pouring out the bleach, water, Oxyclean, and dish soap, then taking the bucket of wet whites downstairs to wash,  we would instead prove every ditzy, teenage girl stereotype correct. 

We put the wet, bleach soaked whites into Babs' mesh laundry bag, then proceeded to drag it down the hall, into the elevator, down 4 floors, down another hall, and into the laundry room. 

Once there, we realized we had neglected to look online to make sure there was actually  a washing machine available.. We stood there for a minute contemplating what to do with our dripping bag of whites and no free washer, when lucky for us, no less than 7 people walked in to move their laundry into a drier, all noticing the growing puddle on the floor around our laundry. 

After putting our whites into a machine and congratulating ourselves on an accomplished, mature adult laundry session, we started walking back to our room.  It didn't take long to notice the very obvious snail slime trail of bleach that ran the entire length of the hall and disappeared into the elevator. After running up the stairs and back to our floor, we were dismayed (though not surprised) to find the bleach trail emerging from the elevator and leading directly to our door. 

In continuation of the general "mature adult" theme of the night, we decided to hide in our room until we could figure out what to do. 

No less than 5 minutes later, we heard a knock at our door, and I opened it to find one of the new friends we had made in the laundry room holding our forgotten detergent. 

"I just followed your trail..."

Poor kid, just moved onto campus and this was his first experience with college laundry.. Must be rough.

We did eventually decide we had to do something about the incriminating trail of toxic fumes (mainly because the trail continued into our room and to the shower), so we took the swiffer and attempted to soak up the bleach.  We succeeded more in just spreading the bleach from a swerving line about a food and a half wide to cover the entire width of the hallway, but in the end it dried quicker that way, and everyone assumed someone had drank entirely too much and puked their guts out, instead of just a completely innocent laundry night. 

If Dr. Seuss has taught me anything, its that all stories must have a moral, and therefore, the moral of this one is that if you are ever in the need of friends, drag a bag-full of a bleach down the hall of your living complex and just wait for someone to show up. 

It's the best calling card since the Joker.