When Lloyd and I had our mini-vacation to the Arbor Lodge, I bought a pashmina-scarf-thing that I absolutely adore. It’s nearly blanket-like when completely spread out – around 2 feet by 8 feet – but thin enough so you can bunch it up and wear it like a regular scarf. If I were brave, I’d even try some fancy knots, but I’m just too pedestrian for those.
I wear it every single day. It’s green, and I am drawn to green clothing. (Brown, too. Green and brown – I think I subconsciously want to be a tree.) I wear it with my coat but keep it on for the first hour or so of my morning. It keeps the chill away and it’s so cozy it makes me feel almost like I’m still in bed.
After months of wearing it daily, however, it was starting to smell like neck.
“Neck?” you ask?
Yes, neck. Slightly ‘maybe-I-should-have-washed-my-hair-yesterday-or-today’ smelling. I’ve thought about washing it for a while, but I took the tag off of it when I bought it so I didn’t know if it needed some sort of special care. Hand-wash only in the tears of a sainted grandmother who bakes pies for the poor or some such nonsense.
After a while, the neck smell was getting to me and I just threw it in some water with some soap. “What’s the worst that could happen?” I thought. “The colors run or it shrinks up.”
Then I thought, “No. The worst that could happen is that the colors completely fade.”
“No. The worst that could happen is that the fibers disintegrate and it completely falls apart.”
“No. The worst that could happen is that it completely falls apart and the lady from wherever this was made has magical powers and senses that I’ve neglected the grandmother tears and she uses her magic portal to step into my kitchen and beats the living tar out of me.”
Maybe I should just buy a new scarf.
Or go see a psychiatrist.
What’s the worst that could happen?