Over the years, I have laundered several non-clothing items – wallets, tissues, small toys, money, rosaries – never on purpose. Items usually are in pockets and in my haste to just get the laundry done, I forget occasionally to check the pockets. Yesterday I washed something I have never washed before with very bad results.

While in my haste to start a quick load of clothes, I grabbed up a magazine with the load. The clothes were on the floor as apparently was the magazine. I did not notice my mistake until it was too late. As I went to put the clothes in the dryer, it looked like the laundry fairy had sprinkled the laundry with very large pixie dust. Well maybe it was more like large confetti, but it was a mess. At first I could not tell what had gotten washed and then I found what was left of the severely ripped and battered magazine.

The bright side is that the magazine bits fall right off the clothes once everything is dry – unlike a tissue. Washing a tissue will give you many, many small tissues that cling to your clothing – even when everything is dry. It looks like your clothes sprouted a winter coat and is a pain to remove all the small bits by hand.

Lesson learned for the hundredth time – check what you put in the washing machine. It might save you a headache later on.

A few posts back, I talked about cleaning a racquetball glove. My husband’s glove was pretty ripe and needed something – either a good cleaning or throwing out. I opted to clean it since the glove is only a few months old. After some research (ok – I used the first link in a Google search), I followed the advice of handwashing the glove in lukewarm water. To quote Julia Roberts in Pretty Women – Big Mistake. Huge.

The glove no longer had an odor but was two sizes too small. It is mostly leather, so the glove will stretch some. Still it will never be the same. There is only one thing left to do now – buy my hubby another racquetball glove.

For the past six months, my husband has been playing racquetball and loving it. I have been playing for about a month and love it, too. So after 15 years of marriage, we are finally doing some form of exercise together. My husband got a racquetball glove at Christmas. It has never been washed and it smells. Since I couldn’t find the washing instructions on the tag, I turned to the Internet for answers.

The glove appears to be part leather – or at least something like leather. I know that this means to wash it carefully but wanted to make sure that it was OK to wash. I found some instructions for hand washing a glove in lukewarm water. The article suggested wearing the glove while still wet to form it back in place. Next is to lay it on a towel to dry. That is the stage I am at – waiting for it to dry and praying it smells less wretched. If not, then I will take the other advice I read when it comes to cleaning gloves – toss it and just buy a new one.

I always keep my old toothbrushes since they really come in handy when cleaning. The other day I dropped some chocolate onto a white t-shirt. When treating it before the laundry, I thought of another purpose for my old toothbrush. I use Oral B Pulsar toothbrushes that vibrate and thought treating this stain might be a good use for this toothbrush. I have seen in the stores what looks to be a large vibrating toothbrush for sale in the laundry aisle. Instead of forking over the $10 for it, I will just use my old toothbrush that still has some battery life left.

It worked well enough. The stain is gone and that’s all the really matters – plus I get to re-purpose a toothbrush. Now I’m no longer tempted to buy yet another gizmo since I have something at home that probably works just as well.