On Following Directions...

When I was a teacher, I always told my students about the importance of reading directions. In fact, I'd sometimes put things like "put a star next to your name" in the directions of the tests I made up and would give them five points off if it wasn't there just to teach them a lesson. Some might call it cruel, but they seemed to get the point after a while. The only one who didn't seem to get it was me because you'll almost never see me reading directions for anything. So it came as a huge shock to me, when I was at the local Suds Cafe on Saturday and something possessed me to read the dryer instructions. The first instruction in the 7-step drying process (who knew drying could be so complicated) said the following:

"Check inside machine for children, pets and foreign objects before loading and starting."

Thank God I read that before starting the machine because, lo and behold, I found a whole army of toddlers in there and who knows what might have happened had they gotten mixed in with my whites. Could've been really ugly. Seems I've finally learned my lesson.

--Julia

(By the way, I really did want to post this on Saturday during Jess' absence, but I had Internet troubles until today. So, Jess, please retract your earlier statement about knowing that I'd hang you out to dry...because unless you are a child, pet or foreign object, I would never do such a thing.)