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A Day in the Life of...

Underwear Burned

September 2006
by Deborah Lipsky

Finally after 20 years I got a full time job for the summer as sea kayak guide in Bar Harbor. It requires me to live away in a 21' camper trailer [that gets smaller by the week] in a campground, which feels more like a parking lot. The job is barely covering expenses so my friends ask why I keep working. I think only a fellow autistic person would understand but it is because when I am on the water people look upon me with admiration, respect, and trust me with their lives. Kayaking is one of my special interests so talking about that all day is like being in heaven. When I am on the water for a short time I am no longer autistic. I feel "normal". It is a very addictive feeling. I make my clients laugh with my stories and they have no clue that I am autistic.

However off the water I am the poster child for poor executive functioning skills. My first week living alone in my camper is testimony enough.

My first day I was excited to cook my first meal alone. The stove wasn't working. I panicked. I ran pell mell in tears to the office and pleaded for help. The man at the office dropped everything thinking I had a crisis.... it was a crisis.  Did you ever try to eat uncooked rice?  He told me it helps to turn the gas on at the tank before trying to light the stove. I knew that too but in all the excitement of moving in it slipped my mind somehow. OK folks, I am living proof that you cannot die of embarrassment.

Then it had rained all week. I forgot my quarters for the laundry mat back home as well as extra underwear so I decided to do wash by hand. The dilemma was I needed the underwear as I was running short [no pun intended] and they weren't drying.  I decided to use my autistic genius and find a way to dry them.  "Eureka" I got a brainstorm. Over the gas cooking stove was a hood range vent with cute refrigerator magnets on it.  With a smug smile of satisfaction I took the magnets and hung up my underwear. I had them dangle about 6"above the burner. Then I lit the gas stove. Surely the heat would dry them nicely.

About 15 minutes later I was sitting on the bed and reading. I smelled something cooking and I thought hmmm, the neighbors must have been having a BBQ. Then I looked up at my walls. I could see an orange glow. How interesting, my neighbors are also having a bonfire. I wonder if they are making smores as I got a faint whiff of something sweet yet I couldn't quite place the smell.  I just happened to look over to my stove and yes you guessed it my underwear was up in flames. I yelled Oh Shi-!!!!! and ran over to take them off. They disintegrated into a million pieces of flaming confetti. I was doing the Irish jig trying to stomp out the flames. I didn't think wet underwear could burn.  I patted myself on the back for being creative but recognized this approach carries a slight risk of turning my camper into a giant toaster oven with me as the main course.

Not being one to quit I was thinking of another improved way of solving this dilemma when I spied my little toaster oven given to me by my friend Marshall. Hmmmm I thought this looks promising. I opened the door, stuck my second pair in there and set the oven dial on bake at 350 degrees. I don't know why 350 degrees other than the fact that most frozen food packages tell you to set it for that temperature. Having learned from the gas stove fiasco not to turn my back I stared intently into the oven window. That was as exciting as watching grass grow. I had laid them on the bare rack and decided to turn them over so both sides would dry evenly. I pulled them out only to find grill lines all over them. Great, now I have a pair of prison panties I thought to myself.
Still I wasn't done exploring this option. Then it hit me.... why don't I wrap them up in tinfoil like you do a bake potato? This way they won't get any more "racing stripes" all over them.

Boy I was confident that this time I would be successful. So that is what I did and with eager anticipation I took out this hot aluminum foil ball from the oven. As I opened it the steam just about scalded my face. I was looking at steamed underpants. Reminded me of those steamed hot dog buns wrapped in foil you get that those gas station/convenient stores.

For now I was out of options so I went to bed pondering some way to have them dry. The next morning I came up with a much safer way to solve this dilemma. I will use my car dash as a dryer. I put the briefs over the defrost vent on the dash. I would let the car warm up and then crank up the defrost. As I sat at a red light at a busy intersection I thought the car was warm enough. I no sooner turned the defrost on high when my underwear launched like a space shuttle in the air. They landed on my head conveniently with one leg hole on my face.  Well at least I could see. Then the light turned green.  I got nervous at the light and didn't know what to do first; take them off or get thru the light. I decided to get thru the intersection first and then take off the underwear so I drove off with them sitting on my head like a cotton fruit of the loam tiara. People in the other cars stared at me in bewilderment...what are they looking at I wondered? Haven't you ever done something like this before?

I threw them back on the dash but they came back at me with a vengeance landing on the side of my face. I did this about 20 times and 20 times they Velcro themselves to my head before I realized that wasn't going to work either.

Finally I had the perfect plan. I parked my car in the sun and then hung them off my rear view mirror. Hey some people put useless fuzzy dice there...at least I was being practical. It worked folks! The next day at work I noticed a car parked near mine with a pair of boxer shorts hanging from his rearview mirror too. Wow, imitation is the highest form of flattery.

While out on a tour I decided to tell my tale of woe to my clients in hopes of some sympathy. After hysterical laughter from the group a husband confessed that they were vacationing with his mother-in-law. Apparently she had the same problem as I did with wet underpants. Her solution was to put them into the hotel in- room microwave and nuke them. According to the husband it worked like a charm. We all marveled at his story. The clients for the sheer absurdity of it and me for the pure genius of the idea. Then I began to get another thought which I will leave you with as the moral to this story. When staying in a hotel room with one of those in -room microwaves think twice before you make your microwaveable popcorn. You never know what a former guest may have put in that microwave.

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