So, it all started because...

... the drier broke. It needs a new thermostat, and we may or may not get laundry done before I have to leave on a plane on Wednesday. Anyone who sees me Thursday, if I look like the bottom of the laundry basket, now you know.

But the drier broke, and the last thing we put in the drier were sheets from our bed.

Which are not dry yet.

Now, once, a long time ago I asked for a clothes line, but Mate still has bad memories of when we had a clothesline outside on a drought-ridden hillside and foxtails used to blow through his underwear. He's always maintained that the drier was for clothes and clotheslines were for serial killers ever since.

So no clothesline.

And we needed sheets to sleep on.

Which means we had to venture into the Linen Closet.

Now some people's linen closet has shelves that face forward and those people can stack stuff on those shelves and then retrieve it.

But OUR linen closet has shelves in the recesses of the closet on either side and then a big space in the middle that we have stacked stuff in.

And stacked it. And stacked it. And stacked it.

It now reaches the ceiling.

It's sort of an archive of sheets, blankets, pillowcases, quilts and shampoo. (The shampoo goes on the side shelves--you must never forget the shampoo.)

Anyway-- in order to get sheets for the bed, I had to put on a helmet, break out a flashlight, and grab a  pickaxe from the garage. The pickaxe was useful but the light was helmet was really important because the shampoo--afraid that its habitat was being invaded and used to roaming the closet at will--was leaping from the higher shelves trying to bash in the head of any interlopers.

So, I mined the archives and emerged successful, with a handful of pillowcases spanning twenty years of random linen purchases and sporting everything from stripes to flowers to Hello Kitty. I put these on the bed, declared myself done with the business and asked Mate if he could put the sheets on.

He came back five minutes later, giggling.

"See this sheet?" he asked. "How big is this sheet?"

And Squish went, "Wait-- that's MY flowered sheet from Grandma! I"ll go put that on my bed."  And then she scurried off.

"Shit," I said. "We have to mine the archives again."

This time I went diving through the strata and he fended off the wild shampoo and by the time I grabbed a sheet and tugged, we were both laughing our asses off.

And then I farted so loud it woke the dogs and they went howling at the door to eat the fartmonster and Mate and I were jelly in the hallway holding a Kingsized sheet and comforter and wondering how this became our lives.

Just remember.

It all started because the drier broke.