I DID IT!!!!!!

I did the thing homemakers have been trying to do for years.

The thing we all wanted to do, but could never quite manage.

We all wanted to prove that it happened, and we could never get the proof. But I now have proof, ladies, in the form of a wet, blackened piece of clothing.

I caught the laundry machine in the act.

I almost missed it. I was in such a hurry to shut the machine door and turn on the load cycle. But a dirty bit of white (make that gray) caught my eye.

"What is that?"

To be honest, it resembled a used tissue or hankie, all wet and scrunched up like that, so I wasn't crazy about touching it. But it was in that metal, rubber-lined trench between the door and the "bin" where everything gets washed. You know - the place the door seals. I wasn't sure if the door would shut properly with that thing there, so I shrugged, and picked the thing up with the tips of my fingers.

It came - and kept coming. It was much bigger than I had thought it was. That metal, rubber-lined trench had nothing under the rubber flap! Somehow this thing had been shoved under the little flap, and I had seen only the edge sticking out into the trench. If the thing had not been held there by the flap, it would have slipped into the large space in the washing machine under the bin. (Ever wonder what's in that large space? I have. What's in a washer machine besides the bin, anyway?)

But, getting back to the story: I pulled this long, wet, gray thing out of the hole into which it had almost fallen, and then I looked to see what it was. It wasn't a hankie.

It was a sock.

Then everything was suddenly very clear. I hadn't rescued this sock. I had captured it. Captured it in an open and obvious attempt to escape, and go where all other missing socks go.

You always knew laundry machines ate socks, didn't you? But you never could prove it.

Until now.