After four months, the lost is found!

Back in June, the wife washed our bedding (yes, it has been washed more since then) and we proceeded to make the bed. However, we were missing a pillow case. Our first thought was that it was in the fitted sheet. It was not there, nor was it stuck to the top sheet. We made the bed while discussing where the pillow case might be.

It was not still in the dryer, it did not somehow fall behind the dryer or on the floor. It was not still in the tub of the washing machine, like it got missed in the transfer to the dryer. It was not on the floor anywhere on the way to the bed, as if it had been dropped. We searched high and low but failed to locate it. A substitute pillow case was pressed into action so that the bed-making might be completed.

As the days passed, we continued looking. Did it get mixed in with other clothes? Did it find its way into a dresser drawer somehow? Was it stuck to a folded towel? Was it in with my underwear, even though the bedding had been washed by itself, and no other loads of laundry were done near the same time. We looked under furniture, continued searching through other clothing, and we looked in the laundry room again and again. But that blue pillow case never materialized.

As the days turned into weeks, and weeks into months, the joking had become less frequent. Have you ever lost an article of clothing in the wash and failed to find it? A sock maybe? Underwear? Wash cloth? How can such things escape from the house? What sort of gremlin steals or hides it? Does the washer or dryer, in fact, eat articles of clothing as payment for loads of laundry processed?

Last Monday morning, the wife was doing some laundry. She left the house to go get the granddaughter. Being the nice guy that I am, when I heard the washing machine end its cycle, I took the clothes out and put them in the dryer. After transferring all of the clothes, I noticed what looked like a long piece of lint under the edge of the agitator. I reached down to get it.

When I started to pull the "lint" up and away from the agitator, it resisted. So, I pulled a little harder, and material started to appear from under the agitator. It was blue. My first thought was, "It can't be!" My second thought was, "No way I pull that out of there without tearing it up." However, slowly, and gently but firmly, I continued to pull until the entire thing emerged. No rips, no tears, no discoloration. I have never seen anything like this before. I was holding an intact pillow case in my hands.

I quickly sent a text to the wife telling her I had found the pillow case. In my text I told her not to ask as she wouldn't believe me, but that I would show her when she got home. Her response was simple, "No!!!!"