Lest I have too much fun
The day I dried my underwear with a rigged hairdryer because I had to get dressed and visit a shelter cat
I made myself several draft posts these past few weeks while on vacation , and this was one of them. I wrote the title and byline, no more, no less - just a vague reminder of the less glamourous moments of a holiday when the rental apartment included washing, but not drying. Exactly as promised to me, and exactly as not thought through by me.
To clarify, I did expect to have to hang my clothes, and there was a brilliant dry rack that fit everything. I just didn’t factor in the humidity or poor airflow after I lost count of the days. So one morning of my vacation was spent with the host’s European hairdryer plugged into a multi-adapter gadget and then into the Maltese UK-style socket in order to painstakingly dry out socks and underwear.
Indeed, I was pretty proud of myself for bringing two North American → UK type adapters and my son had one fancy-pants adapter that permits switching between UK, Europe and North America. There was also a bucket of adapters sitting on a shelf in the apartment.
Two days prior, we were excited to pull this bucket out as - like the hairdryer - there were several surprisingly European kitchen appliances to work with. With a toaster in one hand and the bucket of adapters in the other, we prepared for breakfast. We had purchased bread, cheese and fig jam and were feeling particularly worldly as we set up a small meal.
And then, we tried to make toast.
The bucket of adapters was full of plugs that fit into European sockets. As we dug deeper into the dozens of adapters, there was not a single adapter to the UK outlet type.
This was a graveyard, a farcical collection of abandoned adapters from travellers past, left behind in some perverse or spiteful offering to the VRBO deities.
While I appreciated the irony of openly displaying such failures on the part of apartment patrons, in that moment, I wanted toast.
Setting up for this - and subsequent - breakfasts, at least prepared me for use of the European hairdryer, if not the humidity and constant questioning of are these actually dry.
Dear reader, in the end, both socks and underwear were indeed dry in time to travel to the cat sanctuary for the afternoon visit. Even had they not been dry, the cats would have won and a small discomfort would have been managed.
Is there a moral to this story? No. Just clean laundry. Maybe something about the prioritization of traveling light through life and dealing with the consequences. Or a pithy remark about planning my time better, or that cats always win. Or maybe it’s just staying in the moment and noticing the small things: unexpected electrical, dry socks and toast. I wish I’d taken a photo of the adapter graveyard. I did take a lot of photos and perhaps there’s one in there I just haven’t found yet.
In the meantime, vacation photos - including cats - are being uploaded to Flickr. In the days of resetting my social media, Flickr has bubbled back up in my world and I’m happy to rediscover it. It’s a lovely spot for all photographic moments.
If you like these moments in the extended field, you might also like my twice-monthly newsletter, or my regular readings of public domain texts!
Oh my, I can certainly related to the underwear situation. Sounds like you are having a wonderful time.