Who Knew You Couldn’t Iron THAT!

I wasn’t sure what to blog about today. My mind was blank.

Stop laughing.

And then…….

I did the ironing.

Mimi would tell you that when I was younger (read like 10 years old) I would stand in front of the ironing board and iron to my hearts content. Give me a pile of handkerchiefs that could be precision folded and ironed and I was your girl. Saturday afternoon ironing while watching the Sci Fi movie that was invariably on and I was so there. Day Of The Triffids + ironing = perfect Saturday.

Even in college I might have been known to iron my jeans. Yeah, that’s a Baylor thing I think. Heaven forbid if you stepped out of the dorm without full make up, hair done and jeans pressed.

But I digress.

And then I got married. And I married HHBL. And when we were first married and really for a whole bunch of years he wore a suit every day. And a nice, crisp shirt, heavy on the starch please. And I ended my affair with ironing. Ironing a shirt is a pain in my big fat bahookie. Now, thankfully, the cleaners take care of the dress shirts. I just cannot get them starched to within an inch of their lives so I leave that to the experts.

But I do iron all the more casual shirts. And today was ironing day. That means that my kitchen floor needs to be cleaned first and that I then drag all the ironing paraphernalia out from the laundry room and into the kitchen so that I have a bit more area to spread out in. My laundry room is rather small compared to the gigantic one that I had at OCK. But that isn’t really an issue when it is only HHBL and I…..and the dog.

I was ripping along with the ironing, basking in the quiet of the kitchen (more on that tomorrow in Quick Takes). I had finished all but one shirt and a couple of pair of pants.

Left sleeve done…..

Left front, back, right front done.

Right sleeve done…….

WHAT THE HECK IS THAT SMELL?????

Seriously.

All of a sudden, as I lifted the shirt off of the ironing board I was assaulted with a most disgusting, acrid, pervasive, overpowering smell.

Did I tell you it was bad?

I know that the shirt was clean. I washed it yesterday and hung it up on the rolling rack in anticipation of ironing. And I was pretty sure that the smell had to have something to do with this particular shirt because, as I leaned closer to give a bit of a sniff I almost passed out with the disgusting miasma that burned my nose hairs.

And then I looked at my ironing board cover.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

I know my old ironing board cover pretty well after all these years. And that stain is new. Lean down a bit and sniff.

OH MOTHER MARY AND ALL THE SAINTS IN HEAVEN! But where did that stain come from?

So, I looked at the shirt. Nothing untoward there that I could see…..

What a minute. What is that little stain on the bottom edge of the right sleeve right along the seam? Was that there before? That is a weird place for a stain.

Lean down to sniff gingerly.

GAG!!!!

WHAT THE HECK! (I seem to be using a lot of CAPS. Sorry, it’s a CAPS kind of story)

So I turned the sleeve inside out very gently……..

I evidently had been unaware that there was a stink bug who had gleefully crawled into the interior of the sleeve sometime between yesterday afternoon and today. I bet he thought that was going to be the PERFECT place to over winter.

Boy I bet my hot steam iron was a rude, and ultimately guts boiling, shock to him.

And now I need a new ironing board cover because, despite repeated scrubbing with various cleansers……

The smell remains.