After the 100 Mile Ride this past Saturday, the wife and I camped out at the Dallas County Fairgrounds with some BACA family. It’s a nice place and I’m told the bathrooms are clean. I wouldn’t know, because like most guys at a campground, I eschew modern plumbing as much as possible and wander away from the fire to water a tree.

We had a good time, even though we got some light rain. I had decided early on that since it was only one night that I was just going to sleep in my clothes, but I did not want to sleep in wet clothes.

We had two fires going, 4-5 feet apart. Several of us stood near one of the fires, or between the fires, steaming and drying out. This worked fine, but it left us with the smokiest smelling clothes I’ve ever encountered.

When we got home, Katie and I threw the smoky clothes into a laundry basket that I took down to the basement. If you aren’t aware, we had to replace our washer/dryer combo a few months back. We decided to upgrade to high efficiency machines, which we had never had before. You have 8 or 9 selections to choose from before you even get to the sub-options. I’ve used most of them, but as I stood there, pondering what selection is best for clothes that were infused with smoke, my eyes fell to the option labeled “Allergen.” I had never used it before and I had no idea what it entailed. And as I reached up to turn the selector knob, my brain played this for me:

Why? I have no idea. My overactive, and often dickish imagination (thanks for all the nightmares) often plays me snippets of movies or songs or books at random times.

It turns out the Allergen settings, whatever else it did, at minimum, washes the clothes for 2.5 hours. I threw in an extra rinse and an extra spin just for kicks. After drying, they smelled just like clean clothes, no smoke at all.

So now I have Wonkavator in my basement.

Up next: The Hunt for Snozzberries.