One afternoon in culinary school I was having a conversation with Jolene, one of the school’s employees. We were cleaning up after lunch and chatting about random topics. After a while the subject of laundry came up. She said, “My daughter did laundry the other day and washed socks and towels — together!”

She said this in a way that made me think I should be shocked. I was young and not thoroughly schooled in the ways of laundry, so I asked her, “What’s wrong with washing socks and towels together?”

She stared at me for a couple seconds like I was an idiot, and then said, “Everyone knows you shouldn’t wash socks with towels.”

I was trying to come up with a reasonable explanation for why these two items could not coexist in the same load of laundry. Were the fabrics incompatible when mixed with water and detergent? Would it cause an adverse chemical reaction? I couldn’t come up with a logical explanation, so I asked, “But why?”

I watched her struggle with this question for a second when she gave me a dismissive, “It’s just gross,” grabbed some dirty pans, and walked out of the kitchen. 

“It’s just gross?” That’s the reason? Why was it gross? Was I in some sort of danger of getting athlete’s foot on my face? It all seemed so ridiculous. 

This was over 25 years ago, but her answer for the sock/towel combination being “just gross” was so lame that it has stuck with me since that day. Now when I am washing a load of towels I will dig through the dirty laundry to find as many socks as possible. That’s right; I am still spiting a woman whom I haven’t seen nor talked to in 25+ years.

Welcome to my mind — enjoy the view.