Everything I needed to know about Japan, I learned from my clothesline
...written on 2001-01-28, @ 00:41:01
Tales of Kim's Life in Japan
Sat January 27, 2001
Everything I needed to know about Japan, I learned from my clothesline.
The other day I got up early to do my laundry (get up with the sun, get your laundry done). I got everything washed and on hangers and took it all outside to put on the clothesline, and then I went shopping.
I was out all morning and most of the afternoon. When I returned, I parked my bicycle in the stairwell of my apartment and saw one of the blouses I had washed that morning, hanging on a hanger on my mailbox. Uh oh, I thought, as I pulled the hanger off my mailbox and walked up the stairs, the arms of the gray and black blouse flopping behind me.
When I reached the top of the first landing I peeked out of the glass door and saw that one end of one of the aluminum poles of the clothesline had fallen down and that all of my freshly washed clothes lay in a heap on the dirty roof. Aw crap! I went outside to fix the pole and to figure out why it had fallen.
Much to my dismay, I found that I myself was the culprit who set the unfortunate chain of events in motion. That morning I noticed that there was a strong wind. To prevent my hangers from falling off or crowding together on the line, I put plastic clothes pins on the aluminum pole and then inserted the clothes hangers in the little holes in the clothes pins. They were not designed for this purpose, but had suited me well in previous occasions.
After I hung up all the clothes on hangers, I also put up the contraption I use to hang socks and underwear. I needed a little stopper for that and didn't have an extra clothes pin, so I took a little plastic flower shaped thingee off the pole where it was and put it where it would stop my socks and underwear from crashing into my other clothes.
What I didn't know was that when the wind gets very strong it whips the clothes around making the poles move. If they move enough, they fall out of the metal rings that keep them in a horizontal position sending anything on them crashing to the roof below. Apparently, the little plastic flower shaped thingee was there to prevent that disaster from happening. So . . .
Lesson #1:
What may seem insignificant to you at the time, may indeed serve a very useful purpose.
and . . .
Lesson #2
Be flexible.
I have been missing a pair of casual pants for quite some time now. As I was cleaning up the evidence from Lesson #1, I spotted a broken pink clothes pin of the type that I use for my laundry, lying in one of the indentations of the roof. Ah so, a strong wind must have given the hanger a big hard twirl, breaking the clothes pin and sending the pants flying into the parking lot below. The case of the missing pants and pink clothes pin has been solved.