THE TIE-DYE EXPERIENCE
We meant well.
Nancy found a bunch of white t-shirts on sale, so she got a box of them, plus a whole bunch of different colors of Rit dye. We had about six? eight? bowls of different color combinations, which you add to super hot (almost boiling) water. We decided to do this inside. I think you know where this is going.
We had four large pans on the stovetop, plus a few bowls scattered on the kitchen counters, all filled with dye. We did this in our condo (me & Laura's) because it has the biggest living room.
Things were going pretty well - we were coming up with some pretty sweet designs. It was Nancy, Julie, Laura, Brittany, Herb, Karyn, and me all working on t-shirts. Chelsea sensed something ominous and bailed soon after we started.
The big metal bowl of red dye was in my way. I just needed to scoot it over about a foot. It was on a cork trivet. I didn't know it was on a cork trivet. I was using my left arm (about 2% muscle). The dye-water swished, then the bowl rocked to the other side and swayed, then some magical act caused the dye to arc in a giant wave.
A wave of red dye.
Landing on my blue suede shoes (serious), the counter, the stove, the white kitchen wall, inside drawers, down the front of cabinets, the linoleum floor, and my cousin Laura. But what was cool was the ant-like, silent effeciency that followed. Laura, covered in red dye from the waist down, stood completely still with her arms out (soaked), while two people grabbed rolls of paper towels to dry her off, while two others scooped the dye off the counter with mass amounts of paper-towelage, then grabbed whatever cleaning products we had in the rental condo (it ended up being a combination of Windex and dishwasher detergent, which did swimmingly) and started scrubbing (the counter and floor were pure red), while Herb wiped off the cabinets, drawers, and stovetop, as Karyn is removing my shoes to take them to her place to try to scrub the dye out. All of this was done before Nancy even turned around to say "What happened?" and she was only a few feet away. I'm tellin ya. Ant-like.
I
wish I could have taken more pictures, but trust me - there was
no time. After everything was wiped and scrubbed, we had to scrub
again, and scrub again. We left the counters covered in a paste
of Windex and dishwasher detergent (which turns into concrete!
Try it! It's fun!) and got ready for St. George and the Dragon.
You all know what this means. It means lots and lots of pictures of my family on the next page. P.S. We rinsed the shirts in the ocean, as per some wives' tale or something, and then washed them in cold water. By the time they came out of the dryer, every shirt was a pale greyish mess. All of the dye smeared and washed away. |
 Todd. Sunset. |
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