Oprah can kiss my ass
Oprah Winfrey and Lifetime (Television that sucks) make a lot of money scaring the shit out of affluent white women. Yours truly was the victim of Oprah induced paranoia last night. A couple of days ago, Oprah had a show on cleanliness and how often one should clean. Me and the Mrs. (mostly the Mrs.) clean fairly regularly so I had no fears about it. Then, Oprah did the segment on dust mites in pillows and bed linens. I remember, as a kid, watching the TV show That’s Incredible who had a similar segment. It was creepy watching the little critters frolic in the threads of the fabric but, the fact is, they are harmless and are everywhere.
In typical Oprah fashion, this scared the Hell out of Mrs. Uncle. Yours truly had a particular goose feather pillow. I’ve had it since I was a kid. Granted, it’s probably too long to have the pillow but I loved it. It was worn in, comfy, and I always slept with it. The Mrs. even loved the pillow. In fact, when I’d come to bed after the Mrs., she often was lying on the pillow (which I would promptly take from her and this caused a few marital spats – don’t mess with my pillow).
The Mrs., knowing that I would not allow her to throw the pillow away or I would very likely divorce her if she did throw it away when I wasn’t looking, decide to wash the pillow. Yes, you can wash pillows so no worries. The Mrs. washes the pillow. She goes to take the pillow from the washer and I hear the words OH MY GOD. These were followed with some mumbling but I thought I heard the words kill me. At the time, I was unaware she was washing my favorite pillow. She says to me You’re going to kill me and explains that she was just trying to wash my pillow along with some other things.
I look in the washer and it looks like someone put a goose through a wood chipper (except without the blood that would be involved if you actually put a goose in a wood chipper). There were feathers everywhere. Apparently, you can wash pillows but you can’t wash fabric that is decades old. The liner of the pillow tore and the feathers spun around in the rinse cycle. I remain calm. I have a good laugh with the Mrs. about it and take a picture of the remains of my pillow (I may post it later) and tell her it’s OK and that I’m not going to kill her.
I curse Oprah’s name. My wife even mumbles something about Oprah. If I could have gotten my hands on Oprah, I’d have choked the bitch.
I reel from the shock of the fact my pillow cannot be salvaged only to realize that I have a washer full of feathers and clothes. SayUncle, who is somewhat familiar with the operation of a dryer, gets the idea that we’ll put the clothes in the dryer and the dryer vent will catch the feathers. Great idea. However, the vent filled up in about 2 seconds and burning feathers smell like burning hair. Bah.
Plan B consists of using my Shop Vac to get the feathers. This plan works but takes a while. After, I start the dryer again. It now wreaks of burning feathers and an overheating motor. If Oprah had cost me a new dryer, I’d be on my way to LA right now. I took the vent out of the dryer, disconnected the vent hose and vacuumed them out. I managed to save the dryer. The Mrs. vacuumed the laundry room. This took two and a half hours.
Oprah, on behalf of men who have had to suffer from Oprah induced paranoia, you can kiss my ass.
Update: Oprah is apparently in Chicago. I thought all TeeVee came from LA LA land. Shows how much I know about her. She can still kiss my ass.
September 8th, 2004 at 12:24 pm
SayUncle discusses ‘Oprah induced paranoia’
Oprah induced paranoia caused major disruption to at least one household.
September 8th, 2004 at 2:04 pm
If you want to go to LA-LA Land to strangle Oprah, you’re going to have a ways to walk. I’m pretty sure her show originates in Chicago.
September 8th, 2004 at 2:11 pm
wow….man i feel sorry for you.
though you might do better off being forced to emotionally sepearte from your pillow.
next thing you know oprah is doing a gun show (i hope you wife does not clean those in the washing machine).
September 8th, 2004 at 4:38 pm
For similar reasons, I wound up washing my favorite pillow, which I have had for years. The pillow came to no harm, but because tgirsch doesn’t do laundry often, it never occurred to him to execute the “make sure the cat isn’t in the wash machine” step more than once. I checked before I put the pillow in, and even looked over and saw the cat across the room, then turned back to the machine, put the detergent in, closed the door, and started the machine. I then promptly went and took a shower.
Apparently, the time it takes to put detergent in a front-loading washer is more than enough time for a cat to sneak in there. Fortunately, since it was my favorite down pillow and I didn’t want to risk ruining it, I had the machine on the ultra-delicate cycle, which just gently rocks back and forth with cold water.
After my shower, a good ten minutes later, I heard some sick meowing, and saw a soaking wet cat staring at me through the door of the machine, all the while struggling to remain upright against the rocking of the machine.
Amazingly, the cat was none the worse for wear, and was indeed Tide fresh(tm). He’s just lucky I found him before the spin cycle kicked in.
September 8th, 2004 at 6:38 pm
i bet that cat learned his lesson, or is it still trying to get into the wash?
September 9th, 2004 at 10:13 am
My sincerest sympathy. My wife finally threw away my favorite pillow, don’t even know how long I have had it, but before throwing it away, my wife cut it open and showed me that all of the feathers had turned to powder. I haven’t found a pillow yet to replace it.
September 9th, 2004 at 11:48 am
The cat seems to have forgotten his lesson.
November 23rd, 2005 at 10:11 am
[…] Nearly a month ago, I got an email from a reporter named Dru Sefton. She was wanting to do a story on washing pillows and, in her research, she found this post (read it, it’s funny) I had written that was sort of related to the subject. She inquired about how long I had the pillow, and I said probably about thirty years as I’d had it since I was a wee lad. She asked me the following questions and I gave my answers (reprinted for your amusement): Does reading that research give you pause about sleeping on your favorite pillow for as long as you did? […]