Sunday, March 19, 2006

Stainage!

Today, actually by the end of today, after thinking about this a bit more, I want to arrive at one of the two following conclusions. Either:
1) I wash my clothes way too much.
OR
2) Other people do not wash theirs enough.

See, here is the thing. I am sitting at Starbucks and observing a constant flow of humanity around me. Including people out on the street. But let’s stay indoors, and focus on those that have come in from the cold, for a cup of coffee.
Are you with me?
OK, I have noticed this, [the thing I am going to describe for you now], I have noticed it for YEARS, it’s not that I just discovered it today or anything, but finally I am going to write about it.

Salt stains.
I understand “salt stainage” in general, I do. In the wintertime, the roads are all salted up by our way overpaid municipal folks to melt the snow and ice, it’s all about tire traction!
Occasionally, one’s shoes may get a bit stained up, white with what looks like calcium deposit or something. Like your shoes have a milk mustache.
OK, THAT I totally understand. When I notice it on any of my shoes, I pretty much clean it up immediately, because it looks sort of grody. Am I right?
But, will someone please explain to me how people can walk around with salt stains halfway up their pants?
Like all over the bottom half of their jeans, almost to the knee at times?
It is absolutely incredible.
And they are everywhere, I’ve just seen a whole bunch of examples of it walking around here.
I am not even talking about salt stains down around the ankle area.
No, that would be quite minor.
I am referring to the higher-up type of heavy-duty ADVANCED stainage!

My question is this.
Where in the hell are these people walking?
Are they deliberately wading through some sort of salt pits on their way here?
Is there some special area where people go to receive these stains? On purpose, like?
How can they even possibly get salt stains up that high?

I walk around in the downtown area almost constantly, winter and springtime…. slush season… I am out there, and never in my lifetime have I ever gotten salt stains all over my jeans like this.
But if I did…. if I DID somehow get my pants all salt-stained, I would immediately WASH THEM!
[Now I am ready to introduce the second phase of my consternation…]

Today is an absolutely freezing day.
Point being, THERE IS NO SLUSH!
The roads are not even being salted today!
Today is slushless!
This can mean only one thing.
The people I am observing today have all received their salt stainage long ago! Like, way on OTHER DAYS, and it is obvious from some of the sedimentary layers and variant levels of multiple stainage evidence, that they’ve been stained repeatedly, on different days.
Then, the persons have gone on to wear the same clothes without washing them.

The realization of this is sort of boggling my mind here.

I myself, if even a drop of coffee accidentally falls onto my lap, I wash those jeans before wearing them again.
And yet, here are people, casually walking around, with enough grimy sodium on their clothing to cure a side of pork!

I simply do not understand.
My conclusion is pending…

************

1 comment:

Stefanie said...

Hmmm. I can't say that I have noticed Minnesotans having a salt stain problem like that and we salt and sand our roads here every time there is a threat of snow.

Salt does get on the outside of cars and while I'm great at washing my clothes I'm not so great at washing my car. Maybe the people you saw have been leaning against salty cars?

Or maybe it is as you suspect and they just don't was their clothes. You could do an experiment and walk by a sniff deeply. If they smell bad you know they haven't been doing laundry :)