I'm a Killer

I am a cold blooded killer.  It's true.  Nothing is safe in my path.  Well, except kids.  And people in general.  I would include animals in this list.  Except I did brutally murder a guinea pig once.  Ok, it was more like involuntary manslaughter.  Don't leave your guinea pig outside in its playpen while you're cleaning its cage and then forget about it on a hot, sunny day.  Lesson learned.  In my defense, that wretched rodent was evil and bit my kids more than once.  So, it was more like karma.  Not like that excuses anything.  And it doesn't explain how I killed an innocent basil plant within a week of buying it.

But, by far, the things I brutally massacre the most are sweaters.  And the thing is, I love them.  I love them to death, apparently.  I love when the weather turns cold and I can snuggle up in a big chunky wool sweater.  One that makes me itch like I either have a severe and highly contagious skin condition or schizophrenia.  But bonus, sales clerks tend not to ask if I need help finding anything in stores, so it all works out.  Plus, I don't think they even care if I need help.  It's just a salutation, not an actual question.   Like, "How are you?"

Not that I'm shopping at stores that have sales people for sweaters.  Because my track record is so bad I  banned myself from buying new sweaters a long time ago.  Now, I only buy them at thrift stores.    I figure they're pre-shrunk and at $4 a pop (and if it's Thursday and they're half off, only $2), that's a steal.  Although if you calculate the mileage of a particular sweater before ruining it, that's about $2 per wear.  One dollar in the extreme rare occurrence that I get to wear it twice before destroying it.

Is there some kind of sweater care manual that I didn't get?  I mean I do know they all come with a tag on how to care for the sweater attached to it and all.  But, it's too small for me to read it and then I'm going to have to find my reading glasses and that's just way too much work.  Plus, more than likely it's going to tell me to hand wash it anyway.  Who does that?   So, I'll do what I always do.  Wash it in cold water in an overloaded washing machine because I have a family of six, four of which are teens.  Then I'll lay it flat to dry.  Ok, not actually flat, cause where do I have space for that? I don't.  So, I'll drape it over the half wall, a chair or hang it on a hanger.

Then, when the sweater is nice and dry, it has stiff peaks in the shoulders from the corners of the hanger.  It's also shrunk at least one full size making it a midriff baring crop sweater, which would have been cool in the 80's, but not so cool now that I'm a mom approaching 50.  Not only that, the sweater will have all those balls all over them.  Do you know how many years of my life I've shaved off trying to locate my sweater shaver?  Then after I do, I'll spend a good thirty minutes trying to get all those buggers off, which is clearly impossible, only for them to reappear the next time I wash it.

And there will be a next time.  With a new victim.  Well, not "new" so much as lightly used from Goodwill.   Which just means the money I spend on sweaters isn't actually wasted because it's going to a good cause.

Cause I'm a killer with really good intentions.