Yes!! Growing up in Somerset, we had plimsoles. In fact, I still use the
term, much to the confusion of the "locals" out here! And that "paint"! If
you didn't put enough on, the dirt showed through. If you put too much on, at
least out here in the heat, when dry, the coating cracked and the plimsoles
looked *awful*!!
Mmmm... Pity the wicked step-mother... :) The rose by any other name may *look* like a rose, but it can still *stink* like a rubber-soled shoe (without the Beatles for the sweetener)...
Domestic War I was fought in the laundry dugouts... :)
Until I married, the laundry was done by an "obliging lady" and, as soon as I saw how far she "obliged", I recommenced the good, old, Polish practice of washing all mine by hand. A few months later, DH -- still "under the spell" and actually *listening* <g> -- decided to re-direct her eneregies; from then on, she did the house cleaning, but *I* did the laundry. As I was taught: whites, pale colours, dark colours; clean, medium clean, really dirty... and the various combinations (my *math* fails me, but I can still sort the laundry just so <g>)
For me, the white tennis shoes were a matter of "first, hand clean. Then, hand paint"... For my step-daughter (who had never ran a single laundry load), it was a simple matter of "toss 'em in with the whites" (which included sheets, some underwear and cheese-straining clothes; I as trying to find a logical way of separating the whites...); "under no circumstances put them in with blue jeans and dark socks".... So what, if you use hot water and bleach with white sheets (not so good on rubber)? Use cold water, and a bit of bleach won't hurt (and who *cares* about the rest of the laundry, as long as *my* sneakers are done). So what, if the sheets touch your face? If the cheese-cloth holds something you *eat*? "By the time you've ran the load, all will be clean enough, no? "
DH, as is the male habit, withdrew from the ranks... :)
I ended up washing the sneakers by hand, rather than contaminate the rest of the whites. And I made darned sure that, when my own chick reached that age, he washed his own darned shoes (by hand)... But, as I reach the sunset of my life, and my step-daughter is a woman in her own right with two teenage children in her "quiver", I do, sometimes, wonder... Does she put their sneakers in with other whites?
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Tamara P Duvall
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Lexington, Virginia, USA
Formerly of Warsaw, Poland
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