No. No, Really

I'm a moron.

I understand this. I do stupid things constantly. I fall down, I tear my clothes, I drop an entire taco salad on my lap in crowded restaurants (that might have happened today). But sometimes, I really don't know.

So last night I do laundry, because I've put it off 5 days longer than normal and am now forced to move straight from work clothes to pajamas every day. Short on laundry is what I'm saying.

I'm kinda in a hurry, because Lost is on and I don't want to miss any of it (sidebar: how hardcore is it that they killed off Boone? Just take a hatchet to all the pretty boys on the island, why don't you. But...I loved him. You will be missed, creepy incest boy. We'll always have Young Americans.) so I just toss all the clothes in a basket and literally run over to the laundry room, barefoot and cutting my toe on a rock mind you, and succeed in getting everything sorted, the soap in the machines, the change in the slots, the washers started, and back in the house before the long mid-hour commercial break.

I think I am so awesome.

Boone dies, and it is time to switch over to the dryer. I perform the switch, and I notice something of an odd smell. Nothing overpowering or coming from any one place, just a general weird smell. I don't really place it, but it's not horrible, so I get the dryer going and put an extra dryer sheet in there for good-smelling measure.

The hour of drying time ends, and I tear myself from the video games long enough to wander out to retrieve them, making special effort to put shoes on this time. I open the dryer door, and...it's difficult to describe.

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From the ages of 13 to 15 my family used to take trips to the northern Arkansas border up in these tiny-ish mountains and get a house on the river and have a good old summer vacation for one week a year, with our cousins. One of the big attractions in the nearby town were some local caves, famous for their rock formations. There were huge guided tours all the time. At one point in the tour, you pass by an area that had been the tail end a sulfur mine, back in the early 1900's. (That was how these particular caves were found, while mining the sulfur.) However, the vein had run out very shortly after discovery of the caves. Yet, you could still smell the overpowering stench of sulfur for about 30 feet along the cave, until you got to the breezeway in the cave proper. It was a pretty cool place, but man that smell would stay with you.

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This story seems very out of place. It is not, however, because the smell emanating from the dryer was nearly identical to that of those caves. Apparently, I had left a book of matches in my pants pocket from my bar expedition on the weekend. But these were no ordinary bar matches, these were something straight from the bowls of Hell itself, judging from the smell. I mean, it was on everything and it was overwhelming. Enough sulfur to kill a small woodland mammal.

I sort of just counted myself lucky that the book hadn't ignited in the heat of the dryer and incinerated all my clothes. I was naive.

Because I ran everything through the washer again to get rid of the smell (this time minus the matches, natch) and again through the dryer, and it doesn't matter. The smell is totally still there. Everytime I get into an elevator today, I hear "what is that smell?" Or just a bunch of loud sniffing.

"Yes, that smell is me. I'm the one that smells like a minion of Satan. All of my work slacks now smell of brimstone. (And half my work shirts, and all of my house-lounging wear). Is that what you want to hear? Do you?!" I feel the urge to say, but I do not, because I am not a crazy person.

I just smell like one.