Part 2: The laundry returns

One of the benefits of a few days back in port, was the ability to get some laundry done. We’d all been away for three weeks or more and the place was getting – well a little stinky. So, we each took a black sack and decanted our closet into it, tying them with tape and adding our names (COPA NICK was festooned on mine). I went a step further and separated out my Merino wool gear and placed it in a clear plastic bag marked – cool or cold wash only – Merino wool (which incidentally performs as advertised and it doesn’t smell after extended wear – and I’ve tested it). I placed that clear bag inside my personal black sack. The laundry company duly collected the bags and promised their return later that day.

As we were assembling to head to the Victory Bar for their steak night extravaganza – said laundry was delivered back. Now our expectation were a number of nicely labeled bags, reflecting the labels on our neatly tied black sacks. Not quite so. There were two large white trash sacks (bin bags) marked “underwear,” two even larger sacks marked “tops,” one marked “socks,” and several marked “trousers.” What had gone in individual bags was now united in a pot pourri of clothing. I was reasonably aware of what I had sent – but not entirely. I can remember once suggesting to Bernadette that we should keep an inventory of what went to the dry cleaners – because what went sometimes didn’t return and some weeks later we would be searching for a particular shirt or something – only to find it missing. Upon inquiry at the dry cleaners, the lost item might be produced, sometimes the original, sometimes a facsimile and sometimes a complete denial of ever having had it. Well, in this case we had two issues to deal with: 1) non of us were completely sure about what we had sent and 2) none of us were completely confident that what we collectively sent was what came back and missing items weren’t actually in the possession of one of our colleagues, but in the possession of another customer of the laundry.

So then the auction began. Some items were confidently reclaimed – the shirts and trousers went first. The tops caused some friction, but eventually went, but all hell broke loose when the socks and underwear were picked over. Six grown men trying to remember which underwear and socks were theirs, and things they would publicly own up to. I could locate most of mine – I think, but there were certain items that no-one wanted to claim. However, over the course of the evening, when no one was looking, the unclaimed items all disappeared.

When the last of the tops and such were claimed, all of my Merino wool items seemed to be missing, but apparently, there were things still drying at the laundry and that sounded like they had actually followed the instructions on my inner bag. The fun really started the next morning my colleagues started to surreptitiously arriving into the saloon bearing items of clothing and quietly asking if they belonged to any of us, now conceding that they had prematurely taken ownership of some items in the previous evening’s bun fight. From thin air, a bag of additional laundry arrived mid morning and that was claimed by me.

There’s an old saying “you never really know a man until you’ve spent a day in his underwear” (no there’s not really) and so by the end of this trip, based on the action of a small laundry in The Falklands, we will all know each other really quite well – I suspect.

Pip pip