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Last week I thought my time had finally come for Warhol’s promised minute in the popular sun. We’re all supposedly entitled, but some take the possibility a lot more seriously than most of us who wait our turn even if it comes in an obit. These days those in the greatest hurry adopt a name suitable to fame, read suggested text, and begin killing in honor of the boogey man of their choice. I’m not that into it to crave the iron enriched scent of bled-out bodies soaking the soil. Human butchery is messy. The splash spray of arteries let loose is bound to be hard on the clothing, especially shoes. You can bet the glory seeking boogey-honoring crowd never thinks of that. Any case, the ones doing the deed never show their feet, do they, or faces for that matter. I guess that makes them the middle-men of gory glory.

My shot at fame came without scripture to aid it. I was doing laundry and there it was. All I had to do was open the washer lid and Eureka was upon me. I gaped in awe at a miracle. Life had been created in my washing machine. At least it looked like life, not a high order of anything fetal, but even a jellyfish is life, and that’s what the inside of the washer looked like. A jellyfish had been born there and from the look of it had gone on to meet its maker, who as it turned out may have been me seeing as it was I looking down from above on what I had wrought. This was powerful stuff. I needed help. The first name that came to mind was Jacques Cousteau. Where’s the phone?

Well, you see the problem don’t you? Cousteau had the expertise and fame to be of immense help regarding aquatic life. A washing machine, were it to spawn life, would be in the aquatic realm would it not? I thought so, but it was definitely the case that Jacques being dead was an impediment to using his counsel and fame to build my own. The goddess of fortune is fickle and cruel. I had to do my own undersea exploring and me not much of a swimmer unless you count violent thrashing while rapidly sinking as proficiency. Being an amateur and feeling I had a natural right to poke in my own washing machine I started probing gobs of deceased jellyfish with a fingertip. I knew that was wrong. I should have used surgical gloves, but it was 18 miles to town and invading the ER seemed a wrong turn on the route to scientific fame. To be known for bursting into a hospital, eyes ablaze, yelling, “Out of my way! I’m here for your rubber gloves” wasn’t the kind of notoriety I was after. Also, that was a lot wordier than “Al’s Snack Bar,” the snappy phrase of the modern zealot. But then, I wasn’t ready for that level of celebrity.

In any case I saved the gas of the thirty six mile round trip and risked a fingertip in the cause of science based on the theory that without a microscope I could detect a stinging cell by being stung. You cannot deny the science validity of that argument. I was spot on with that one, and if I was stung and began to foam at mouth and see my expiration date starting to form there was 911 to call on. Let them spend the money on gasoline and whisk me to safety where there might incidentally be a microscope for close up cell scrutiny (unless all is sent “out” to a lab, which is likely). After prodding a half dozen blobs of jelly I had no stinging poisoned reaction and even less idea what the stuff was other than there seemed to be a damned lot of it as if the jellyfish genesis in my washer was a major planetary event. Having been on the Super-Size Load setting I decided to half my investigation by dividing Super into two regulars. Half the sheets in the laundry tub; I dove deeper into the task of discovery. And there, almost as if it wished to be revealed and its secrets known, was the mother of all jellyfish. I’d seen these things before, and so have you, but I bet never in your washer. The jelly spawn had one source, a disposable diaper.

I continue praying to all Gods known that disposable was a virgin left by accident and as accidentally slipped into the cabin laundry. Oh, how I pray! Indeed, I believe it was such fervency of prayer that got me over the rough hurdle of lost fame; for after all who’d want to be known for ignorantly having laundered a disposable diaper? Such would be a monumental blow to any ego. Both hands contaminated, what difference did it make if I plucked that heavy parcel of watery goo and plopped it into a plastic pail; ker-plump in an artistic interpretation of its reason to be on this earth? I decided it was just as well I’d kept Cousteau out of this. I firmly believe that in any case he’d have been out of his league in washing machine aquatics. He was not needed.

As one of a likely few to launder a disposable and be dumb enough to tell of it, I feel a burden or responsibility to report that the innards of a disposable are cunningly created to turn into an awful lot of gooey creation. I don’t know (or care to) the average volume of infant pee, but that sucker had to hold two gallons if it held half a cup. A large package of disposables is like a barrel of water. Think of that! These things could take over by consuming all our water;  turning it into jelly. You want to drink some jelly? I don’t. And when you’ve rewashed your laundry (twice to make sure) there’s an interesting result on the lint screen. That’s another miracle, though not of life. But, I’m done. This is quite enough fame for me.