Sometimes the laundry makes me laugh.

I am standing at midnight doing laundry, again, now it takes even longer because there is one more step added to my routine. As I remove the underwear from the dryer, I have to inspect it for wearabilty the ol' "If you were in an accident and the paramedics had to strip you down to your underwear, would you be embarassed?" test. More and more often the answer is "Yes, I'd be embarassed, humiliated, absolutely mortified!" And the reason is the puppy. She has a thing for underwear. She loves nothing more than to get a pair of underwear from someone's dirty clothes basket and gnaw and gnaw until she is discovered and the fantastic treat is ripped from her clenched jaw. Abby especially likes underwear that has been worn. The smellier the better. About now, everyone who doesn't own a puppy like this is wrinkling their nose and saying "ewwww". But it's kind of like baby diapers - remember how you could change your baby's diaper all day and night long and it really didn't seem to smell that bad? But then when you babysat the neighbor kid and had to change his diaper, you were choking back the vomit so as not to puke all over the front of his onesie? It's like that. Gross, nasty, disgusting habit if it's NYD (not your dog) but just another funky, sweet, little quirk that makes up your little punkin's personality if it's your baby dog.

Youngest is going through one of those bath resistant stages that little boys go through. The "I don't want to take a bath" whine-fest followed by playing and splashing until the water is ice cold and then whining about having to get out of the bath - it's not a bad stage - I'm fairly immune to whining. So Ex-Marine and I were sending Youngest to the tub the other night and he started the whining routine. Ex-Marine always has the fun filled solution to every problem so in a very serious tone, he suggests, "Youngest, you don't have to take a bath if you can pass the dog sniff test. If the dog can sniff your underwear without going crazy, you must still be clean." So Youngest is tickled silly thinking about this and immediately drops his uniform pants to the floor. Well forget the underwear, the dog went crazy just with the pants. She dove for his ankles, rolled herself into a ball with the pants taking Youngest to the ground in the process. She was nipping and sniffing and licking like a crazed cat with catnip until Youngest finally untangled himself from the pants and ran to the tub and Ex-Marine took the pants away from Abby.

But that story isn't the only one I am remembering as I fold the clothes. My other underwear story makes me chuckle out loud. I was visiting my SIL out of state (Ex-Marine's sister). We, the SIL and I, get along very well. She's a busy mom and a government slave - just like me. We were talking about some family photos we had done. She complimented me on my outfit and I had to tell her that yes, I was pleased with how it turned out becasue that was actually my second choice outfit. I coudn't wear the first blouse I had chosen becasue it is somewhat clingy and requires a proper foundation garment (aka as a Spanx). I didn't find out until the day of the photo session that my Spanx was not wearable because the crotch had been chewed clean through. And then there was silence and she kind of gave me a look. And I gave her a look right back because WTH, sure I'm talking about underwear but it's Spanx, everyone talks about Spanx, they're part of pop culture. Then SIL gets a real prim and proper tone with me and says, "That's really more than I needed to know." And I am totally befuddled until it hits me...I'm telling her a story about Spanx and my puppy. But she's hearing a story about Spanx and. her. BROTHER! And at that point I laughed so hard I peed! Boy, puppy's going to love that pair of underwear when she finds them.