Oh for Pillow's Sake!

This is a long tale that may just bore you out of your mind. The great thing about blogs and emails is that you don't actually have to keep reading them if you don't want to. So don't, if you don't want to.
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It all started Sunday night. Ryan and I were trying to watch an old episode of the A-Team (what a blast from the past!) on his laptop, but poor Zach kept waking up, crying. After going up to comfort him for the 8th time, I went up to see him out of bed and coming to find me. I asked if he wanted to climb in our bed, even though we weren't in it. I tucked him in and he slept much better. We finished our A-Team and headed for bed.

We figured we'd be sharing our bed that night, so we just arranged ourselves around our monstrous 3-year old. We hadn't been in bed more than 10 minutes when I heard a disturbing sound coming from within his stomach. I hardly had time to jump out of bed before he puked all over everything.

I grabbed him and ran him to the bathroom where he puked a few more times. Then I put him in the bathtub and started cleaning up. Meanwhile, Ryan had stripped our bed and had started the washer.

We put fresh sheets on our bed so Ryan could go to sleep. But Zach had soiled deep down, getting our mattress pad and my pillow. What wouldn't fit in the washer waited in a pile for another day.

That day was today.

My pillow says it's machine washable. What they don't tell you is that while it's made of machine-washable materials, it's nearly impossible to actually wash it in a machine! Or by any means, for that matter.

I tossed it into a relatively empty load of laundry, thinking I'd give it extra room to swish. I went downstairs to the kitchen and was again disturbed by a small sound: water trickling. It sounded like it was coming from directly above me--the ceiling under the laundry room.

I ran back upstairs, and although I'd been gone for less than 2 minutes, the entire laundry room was flooded, and the carpet in the hallway was rapidly becoming so. I waded in to lift the washer lid, then dashed for the Floor Mate to suck up all the water. I emptied the thing about 10 times, but man, does it get the floor dry!

Stymied by the washer's misbehavior, I went to investigate. I have no idea what happened. Maybe it caught Zach's stomach bug and threw up the water? The only odd thing was that my pillow was just sitting there on top, nearly dry.

I shoved it under the water, but it just bobbed back up. Apparently, the outer fabric becomes air-tight when wet, because only tiny little bubbles leaked out of certain seams when I held it under. It was like trying to drown a beach ball! Beach ball, beach ball. To drown a beach ball, you'd have to pop it, right? After a few more minutes of struggle, I grabbed a utility knife and popped my pillow.

Minor disaster dealt with. I patted myself on the back as the washer hopefully swished away the vomit from my now-deflated pillow. But what's that sound?

Splat...splat...splat.

I ran downstairs to find the kitchen table, placemats, etc. soaked. Water was dripping from the light fixture above it! I grabbed a handy pitcher to catch the water, but it only helped a little. Because it was falling from so high up, the water hit hard and splashed out again. I held the pitcher up high and wiped off the table. There is now a bar stool on top of the table, holding the pitcher high for me.

It's not clean water, either. At first I thought it looked a bit amber-ish. But when Zach came down, he asked why there was apple juice on the stool on the table. Eeew.

Minor disaster #2 dealt with. Another pat on the back. The washer had stopped, so I peeked in. It still had 6 inches of water and sopping laundry. Of course, that pillow must be heavy and unbalanced the load. I piled everything else directly opposite the pillow, and after a few tries, it worked. I babysat the washer as it desperately tried to spin that thing dry. Problem is that it had re-inflated. I had to squeeze the air out of my utility-knife puncture again. Then the boys and I sat on the washer to keep it from wobbling its way out of the laundry room.

But oh my, that was just the first spin cycle. We got to do it again.

I think we're done now. Now that I have to hurry and make dinner so Ryan can get out the door to Scouts with a mere 30-minute window. At least, I think we're done. The pillow says to put it in the dryer. What do you think it'll do to that?