I’m 26 and have been living on my own for five years. Here’s what I’ve learned about doing laundry:

1. That don’t mix colors crap? Bullshit!
2. The average apartment complex washer can fit two and a half hampers worth of dirty clothes.
3. Make sure if you wash that much to compact the clothes down as much as possible.
4. Your cheap neighbor really IS cheap enough to wait until you’ve gone back to your apartment to stop the cycle, unload all of your stuff, and load all of his stuff back into it.
5. That’s why you should bring a good book with you, as you stand guard.
6. Also, a .45 Colt Automatic.
7. Because rats like the laundry room too.
8. And hobos.
9. Quarters are good, and the prices keep going up.
10. Anything shiny is good, monetary value be dammed.
11. Clean the lint out of the dryer before using.
12. If you have washed 2 1/2 hampers worth of clothes, it helps to pay extra to run the dryer longer.
13. Like, an extra half hour longer.
14. If your hot neighbor left her panties in the dryer and you find them, you get to keep them.
15. I mean, leave them.

UPDATE: I have, in fact, not been stealing the BlondeLibrarian’s panties.

A couple years ago I got a kitten named Callie. I lived in a studio apartment at this point. Many mornings at the reasonable hour of 3am, Callie would experience what I like to call a compulsive disorder urging her to commit ownercide.

She would be under the futon, and break into a run, making a right-turn at the wall and running under the couch against the sliding-glass door. She would follow the couch into the kitchen, where she would make another right hand turn. Passing through the kitchen, she’d made another right hand turn at the bathroom, and run along one of those long “open box” bookshelves that’s all the rage at IKEA. She’d sprint across open space from the end of that bookshelf to my computer desk, making her final right hand turn.

The way my apartment was set up, my computer desk sat against another one of those “open box” bookshelves. On the other side of that bookshelf was my futon.

Anyway, Callie would jump onto the desk, then onto the bookshelf. There she would wait for a scant few seconds, extending all claws, then, like a World War II paratrooper jumping into German held France, she would leap, landing on or around my chest or stomach, which would result in my leaping up screaming “WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?” by which point, of course, she would already be making a right hand turn at the kitchen for her second attack run.

Usually by the second or third jump I would be awake enough to catch her as she tried to kill me. That usually freaked her out and she’d spend the rest of the night curled up at the other end of the futon, keeping my feet warm. On occasion, she’d scratch at them when they moved, and then I’d rarther unceremoniously push her off the bed with those smelly cheese-crusted toes.

There is stupidity in this world, oh yes indeed.

Pastor Deacon Fred had originally inserted a Baptist mole into the offices of New Line Cinema after the Board of Deacons learned that Hollywood was finally creating a movie based on the Book of Revelation. “While the title sounded convincing, since Jesus is the King of Man, we still feared that the homosexual Jews who run Hollywood might be using their trickery to coax Christians into witnessing blasphemous filth. Most of us remember very clearly our revulsion back in 1972 when we went to the screening of that Larry Flynt fellow’s “The Second Coming.” There are so many great Christian movies coming out lately, like The Gospel of John, and even that damned Mary Worshiper Mel Gibson’s The Passion, we just assumed this was another one,” he announced at a press conference. “Boy, were we ever wrong! Them Jews really pulled a fast one on us with this one. George Bush should make it illegal to use the words, ‘King,’ and ‘Return,’ in the same sentence, unless someone is referring to Jesus Christ. I have to say, it is just out-and-out blasphemy for mortal men to call themselves King. I’m talking about that hillbilly junkie. No, not Rush Limbaugh – Elvis. No one ought to be calling themselves “King” except Jesus. That includes that colored Martin Luther fellow and his damned white-guilt holiday we all have to pretend to celebrate just so those lazy good-for-nothings at the bank can take a day off of cashing vital tithe checks. And especially that anorexic pedophile at Neverland Ranch. But what would you expect from a country that calls that liberal shrew, Barbra Streisand, a saint? I tell you, we even watched about a dozen trailers for this film and we were absolutely convinced it was a movie about Jesus’ glorious return to Earth to torture and slaughter those who never accepted Him as their personal Savior, just as described in the Book of Revelation. The trailers even showed thousands upon thousands of people being slaughtered by soldiers, gruesome creatures, fires and earthquakes, just as described in the Bible. We here at Landover Baptist just felt like we simply had to be the first Christians to see this movie, just as we will be the first, and perhaps only, Christians to see Jesus.”

Oh, relax … it’s a parody site!

But damn funny.

When I moved into this apartment on June 10th, 2003, I had three nail clippers. I’ve bought two more since then because I can never EVER find them. Like today - I ripped apart the bathroom, the bedroom, and the living room looking for ANY of the five clippers I’ve had.

AND I CAN NOT FIND THEM!

My current theory is that Guy and Tippy are hiding them somewhere, somewhere secret where they go when I’m sleeping and say in feline-ese, “Look at these shiny objects, we must treasure them.”