you know you've gotta stop

in my house, for as long as i can remember doing laundry, there always seems to be some article of clothing that comes out of the washing machine an orphan. the entire family swears themselves blue in the face that it does not belong to them. but it had to have belonged to someone in the house because i'm pretty sure the neighbors didnt sneak one of their shirts into our machine as some weird unfunny practical joke.

claims of "you were wearing it like two days ago, how could it be a different shirt?!" are somehow averted and the clothes start a long and exhausting journey to find a home.

it starts out playing musical closets for a while. i'll put it with my sister's clothes assuming it's hers. "this is not my shirt," she'll say, unreasonably offended at the idea, when she sees it. she'll go and stick it with my brothers clothes because that's what she does with random stuff that she doesnt think belongs in our closet. the older of the boys will shove it into the younger one's clothes because he only wears button down stuff if he can help it and no one should put their stuff with his. my younger brother is tiny and could probably fit himself and everything he owns into our clothes, and so he throws it in with my stuff. i find it again and send it down to the basement where my parents live because maybe they know where it came from and who should keep it. of course, a few days later i find it in the pile of clothes making its way back upstairs to us. it goes back in with my clothes, and i give up and just stick it in with my stuff.

cut to a month or so in the future. my sister is looking through my clothes because despite the fact that she goes clothes shopping six million times more than i do, my (side of the) closet just seems to be better equipped for some reason. anyway, she pulls out the adopted shirt. "oh my god this is perfect! where did you get this? how long have you been hiding it? can i have it?"

i look confused at her recurring amnesia, tell her that once again it was an unclaimed shirt from the washing machine. she laughs and takes it. the next time a shirt goes unclaimed, i assume we'll cut the game short and she can just take it from the beginning because it was hers in the first place and she'll take it back eventually.

apparently, we all just really like playing the game.

*Quit Playing Games With My Heart - Backstreet Boys