Blog Chain: This Old House

Jon has a turn at the blog chain this round. He asks:

Imagine the home(s) where you grew up, and start drawing a floor plan. As you draw, memories will surface. Grab onto one of those memories and tell us a story.

I lived in a three-bedroom ranch house for a family of five. So this meant a lot of construction and rearranging of rooms. I shared a room with my older sister, with the bathroom beside our room and the hallway twisting around to my brothers room (whose door faced ours -- if you can imagine it) and the hallway continuing into the backroom.

Since this was a ranch house, we had no basement. This meant the washer and dryer were located in the kitchen beside the stove and chest freezer. So the sounds of of the washer would fill the whole house. A mist of steam coated all the windows, as we would draw funny faces on the surface, watching the drips slide down the pane.

One of the stories of this house I will take from a post I made long ago on my other blog.
******************
Buzzzzz!

The button popped out as the whirling sound faded along with the clanks and rattles of tossed zippers and clasps. A blast of heat escaped from the open door. Hot clothes tumbled into the waiting basket.

Laundry Day.

It was the one task in the house that we (my sister, brother, and me) helped on whenever we heard the familiar buzzing sound of the dryer. We became good laundry folders as we shook out the loose lint, tucked in the sleeves, rolled - not folded - the towels, and balled up the socks. Then we dutifully carried the full baskets to our respective bedrooms and dumped everything into an untidy mess on the floors. The basket flipped onto its side as we cowered behind our makeshift forts and lobbed soft mayhem at each other.

SOCK WAR!

Heck! Who needed snowballs? It did not even have to be winter to have such fun. Argyle missiles sailed from one bedroom into another, the checkered style causing cross-eyed, hypnotic stares as it took confused enemies (a.k.a. my brother and sister) by complete surprise. Knee highs were small fast balls able to curve around corners. Holey socks were the best fun, as we stuck fingers into the toe holes and chucked them with great strength like a javelin hurler. The sock would swoop through the air, smack the window or closet behind the enemy, and ricochet back as a sneak attack from the blind side. Whenever we ran out of socks, we had to run out into the hallway and gather up the misfired ones. Then we tried to scramble back to safety, ducking and diving with the balls aimed at our cheeks.

No, I am not talking about the cheeks on our faces. The other ones.

Even better, no body part was off-limits - not even our heads. When the battle ended, we never had to worry about black eyes or missing teeth or broken limbs. Maybe we might have a little injured pride. Yet revenge could wait until the next laundry day.

Can you imagine if we fought real wars with socks? We could subdue the foe with cottony softness.

Sock war. Fun for the young and old alike. Children. Spouses. Take a little time out of your day to toss a sock at someone. Laughter will ensue.

*Disclaimer: I really shouldn’t have to say this but...the blog owner will not be held responsible by any misuse of your socks that leads to injury (splashing your sock into a pot of boiling water), arrest (holding up a bank using a sock as a weapon), or stupidity (ramming your you-know-what up your mean boss’s you-know-where). Use some commonsense, folks*


Read Katrina's story from yesterday and check out Eric's home story tomorrow.

10 comments:

  1. Hah! Hilarious. Sounds like so much fun.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Make socks, not war! ;)

    It must have been fun cleaning up afterward.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Matthew: Yes, it was one of the good memories.

    Sandra: It was easy cleanup, since the socks were still all balled up, we just tossed them into the drawer.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great story, Michelle. I love the idea of a sock war. Your disclaimer at the end though, cracks me up the most. I can just see somebody out there trying to do exactly what you warn against. It never amazes me how stupid people can be. As they say, common sense is not really that common. Anyway, great post.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Eric, I always err on the side of caution. Don't want anyone suing me over a mis-tossed sock.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Misuse of socks. Bwahahahahaha

    ReplyDelete
  7. This was terrific! Socks are a load of fun! Your disclaimer was awesome as well. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  8. SOCK WAR!

    I loved this, Michelle! Thanks for the fun.

    ReplyDelete
  9. OMGosh...we do sock wars!! SO much fun. We set up forts and go at it... my kids and hubby and me. Til of course, someone gets hurt... and someone always gets hurt.
    Thanks for the fun memory! :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. OMG sock wars - that sounds like so much fun... and a much warmer alternative to snowballs!

    ReplyDelete

All comments are welcome. Thanks for stopping by!