The Pocket Game

Even amid the turmoil and angst from last week's events, life went on as usual. The dishes were dirtied, needing to be washed; bookbags, shoes, books, and toys were left all over the house, needing to be put away; birthday gifts were unwrapped and left out, needing to find permanent homes; and clothes were worn, needing to be laundered.

I thought I'd better catch upon on the laundry today so the kids don't have to go to school in just their underwear.

Leave it to my son to surprise me: I never know what I'm going to find in his pants pockets as I throw them in the washer.

The boy has always worn pants with pockets -- the more, the better. Even when he was barely able to walk, he preferred pants with at least a couple of pockets. At first, he simply liked to practice putting his hands in and taking them out. He graduated to figuring out how to work the velcro, snaps, zippers, and flaps. But then, he he found the pockets useful as repositories for his great finds!

He's like a walking magnet: He just attracts people and stuff.

His mind sees great possibilities for that spring from a ball-point pen on the ground. He sees a fortune in that penny. He can't bear to part with the drawing or notes he wrote on that scrap of paper. It's his next great idea!

(Of course, this explains why his room is always a mess... Too much stuff, no rhyme or reason, underutilized garbage can...)

Back to the laundry. As I pull stuff out of his pockets, I toss the found contents on top of the dryer.

I rarely find anything in my girls' pockets, but I learned a long time ago that I'd better check his. Have you ever tried to get crayon out of clothes or out of the parts of a dryer after it's already been heated and fused into place? The short answer: it doesn't come out. Same with Sharpee marks. And chocolate candy. Paper money sometimes survives intact, but sometimes it doesn't. And, of course, something red in the pocket always winds up in a load of white clothes that soon become a lovely shade of pink.

Since my son gave me a laugh today, I thought I'd share the wealth! Here are some of the items that have come from his pockets just today:

• Two packs of post-it notes
• Four writing implements: mechanical pencils, regular pencil, pen (hmm, this is a "light" day)
  
• Pencil sharpener
• Big eraser
• Tube of slide & cork grease for his saxophone
• Listerine PocketMist
• A squashed ring (looks like costume jewelry) that looks like it's been driven over with a car
  

As I write today's list of great finds, I'm reminded of some oldies but goodies from past washings (some were caught pre-wash; some, alas, were not caught until after they'd already been washed & dried):

• The aforementioned crayons and Sharpee
• Chocolate candy, gum, and a variety of other sugary snacks
• The wrappers of consumed candy, gum, snacks
  
• Money, both paper and coin
  
• GameBoy game
• Six bobby pins (for holding hair in place) attached to a rubber band (OK, I don't get this at all)
• Get this one: a bundle of no fewer than 25 pens/pencils/markers stuffed into one pocket! (Said he found them on the floor of the hallways at school at the end of the day)
  
• Ball-point pen parts (springs, tube, etc)
• Numerous segments of some other type of tube (not sure what they were from, but he had some type of science experiment in mind)
• A hundred other odd objects I've found and forgotten over the years

This habit of his that can drive me crazy some days has me laughing out loud -- alone in the laundry room -- on other days. It's just another manifestation of his personality. He's a person who is always thinking, always creating, always inventing, always finding something useful in what may appear to be useless.

Someday, he'll graduate to driving his wife crazy with all the stuff he finds and saves. But -- whoever she is -- she'll have snagged herself a guy with a great deal of creative energy, a mind open to possibilities, and a store of native intelligence.

And he'll have snagged himself a gal with a great deal of patience and an appreciation for someone who thinks outside the box. One who appreciates The Pocket Game.