Grammy gave "Lovey" to Riley when she was born.
Because of all the living and loving evident in Lovey's fur, we recently took him to the local laundromat for a quick, sudsy spin and a fluffy air dry... Riley cheered Lovey on the whole way, Fisher cheered Rye on.
Riley and Fisher have similar dispositions towards their stuffed friends-simply put, stuffed animals are real... and the cuter the stuffy, the more in tune with its feelings they seem to be... situations like being put in the washing machine are matters of survival, not just hygiene.
It's cute ~until something tragic happens, like a severed limb (or ear!) or a spill over of stuffing or something... you would think we'd lost a family member in the trauma unit should something like that occur. (There was a light stuffing leakage on this day and ALL of my kids thought we'd lost Lovey.)
So, imagine our motley Brew Crew hauling Lovey, the Giant Pink Puppy into the Laundromat; moving from station to station as the mob that we are, creating all the necessary chaos to operate the machines, as we fight for the best 'seat' to watch the 'show'(or camera angle to take pictures, ::guilty gulp::) pummeling & elbowing one another from time to time when someone blocks our view...some of us cheering and shouting at the 'screen' like we were watching that Notorious College Football Championship instead of ...a WASHING MACHINE.
I tell you, we fit right in at the Laundromat! And I cannot wait to go back sometime soon, which we are going to have to do, because I still have sixteen dollars on the Wash & Dry card they make you trade your real money in for. Turns out the math they taught me in school did not cover properly estimating time & money in a laundromat that lists prices like a slot machine... blinky little screen things that they are!
I have got to add two little asides before you get your turn at "Watching-A-Washing-Machine" (sounds like a great new trend to start- quick someone, Pin This!)
1.) As we were talking about this adventure later, Rye said "Lovey go in the dishwasher!" (I think that might be worth a try next time ... I've been needing to mop the floor again anyway.)
2.) There is a thrift store that funds a local pet rescue a few doors down from the laundromat. As we waited on the dryer to finish, we moseyed down to see what we could see. When the lady at the door asked us "Are you looking for anything in particular today?" and I explained "No, ma'm~ we're just washing our dog next door, killing a little time as we wait for him to dry." It really WAS the right thing to do to specify that we were referring to a stuffed dog, but it would have been so much funnier to just leave it at "dog" don't ya think?