Domestic Mysteries

Last week, with the single press of a button, I managed to dye an entire laundry cycle, including half the Vicar's underclothes, bright pink. As I burrowed frantically through the under-sink cupboard for the bleach I'd just bought, and found instead five half-filled bottles of white spirit, which I have never knowingly owned, I realised that domestic life is full of mysteries that defy science.

There's the inexplicable fact, for instance, that the molluscs of Middlesex choose to commit mass suicide in my tiny kitchen drain - and the related conundrum that, despite the combined IQ of my family far eclipsing my own, only I am deemed capable of scraping out the slug stew that causes the sink to drain over the patio.

I would be grateful, therefore, if the world's great minds would leave off fiddling with the Higgs boson and find an explanation for why...

Each time you halve the contents of your laundry basket it doubles.

No matter how many bottom sheets you buy, there are never any spares in the linen cupboard.

All shiny new teaspoons are guaranteed to disappear, but the old liver-spotted ones that make the kids weep defiantly accompany you on every house move

Socks enter a hot cycle in conjugal harmony and emerge forever singletons.

There is always a can of sweetcorn in the larder in every home you've ever occupied, although you have never bought the stuff. 

There is never a replacement packet of coffee in the larder, although you stock up on it every Thursday.

The brolly bucket, despite your frequent investments, is colonised by unfamiliar umbrellas of unfathomable origin, none of which open. 

It's always the right-hand glove that vanishes on first outing, so you can never improvise a pair from your legion of lefts.

Regardless of how many smart leather bookmarks you acquire, you're always obliged to resort to a length of loo roll to mark your place at bedtime. 

No mortal being under your roof is ever responsible for the disappearance of the spare car key/new bath soap/black shoe polish/TV remote control.

What domestic mysteries bug you? Or can you produce a scientific explanation for mine?







Comments

  1. The sock conundrum is the most frustrating.

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    Replies
    1. The Vicar's socks are all a variation on the theme of black, yet even so, none of them match up.

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  2. On my last count Syd had 27 odd socks, that surely defies the laws of mathematics!

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    Replies
    1. You'd think after a few years a couple of the accumulated strays could be paired off. There should be a dating website which matches the vital statistics of singleton socks

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  3. Whenever you take anything to pieces there is always a bit missing when you come to put it together again

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    Replies
    1. Absolutely. And whenever you assemble a flat pack there's always a bit missing too.

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  4. The male members of my family just don't care and wear any 'pair' of socks, regardless of whether they match! So long as they're hole-free.

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    Replies
    1. Luckily my son is prepared to have multi-coloured feet. But it offends my sense of order.

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  5. To say nothing of the hangers that breed in my closet.

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    Replies
    1. Why, they are most likely my hangers, all of which flee my homestead in the middle of the night leaving a heap of homeless cardies.

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  6. That sock one was a thing of beauty.

    I've discovered that every time you buy a humane mousetrap, the mice that invade your home get bigger... meaning you have to resort to the tried and true Victorian method of using the ones that snap them in half.

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    Replies
    1. Cripes, that's not a mystery that I've yet had cause to ponder!

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  7. Actually the biggest mystery is this. If I ask one of the off-spring to do a chore, they will explain how ridiculously time-consuming (and possibly physically demanding) that piece of work is. But I've been doing them for years and years in a fraction of the time, and lots more too. So I must have mysterious powers. Surely.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, I should say you've hit on the greatest mystery of all!

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