These two things in Stuff

I feel like all I write about here anymore is about my interactions with Megan. And I suppose it really is a big part of my life these days, which is still weird to me when I consider that we’ve been neighbors for a long time and up until six months ago I’d almost never spoken to her.

First, I’ve invited her to join us on a camping trip over Memorial Day weekend and she of course has accepted. Honestly she’s such an omnipresent part of our lives these days that I think it would have been weird for us to go on a trip like this without inviting her. But as I started thinking more about the logistics of the trip, I realized we don’t have a tent that would comfortably sleep five people. When we’ve had four people in the tent on previous trips it has already been crowded.

So naturally I decided we’d just take two tents. When I mentioned this to the kids, Mercy immediately responded that we’d have an adult tent (Megan and I) and a kid tent (the three of them). My radar went off about being in a tent alone with Megan so I suggested that an adult tent would actually mean Olsen would be included too. Olsen kind of shrugged it off like she didn’t care which tent she slept in.

I don’t want this to sound wrong. I don’t feel like Megan is predator or would do anything inappropriate, but I’d rather not put ourselves in that position at all.

Second, I was out in the yard looking at what will eventually be our flower beds once it’s officially not going to get cold anymore for the season, and I see Megan putting a very full laundry basket into the back of her car. I walked over to her and made some comment about how I didn’t see her as the type to go to the laundromat.

She responds that her washing machine is broken and she hasn’t decided yet about either fixing it or getting a new one, so she’s stuck at laundromats for the time being. I told her of course she could just use my laundry and she graciously accepted. Considering how much license she already takes with my house and my family (and I’m not complaining about this, I’ve basically given her free rein), I’m surprised that using my washing machine wasn’t her immediate first thought.

So she went inside and started working on her laundry. It’s not unusual for her to be at the house so I didn’t pay much attention to her for most of the time, but I happened to be there talking to her when she was taking some clothes out of the dryer. We were talking about the hot tub progress in her yard and I just kept noticing her taking pair after pair after pair of panties out of the dryer. I finally stopped and said something like, “Holy shit, how often do you change your underwear?!”

She laughed at the fact that for once I was the one asking an awkward question, and went on to explain that different activities require different underwear, and in a typical day she might wake up in one pair, wear a different pair on a run, then wear a different pair to the gym, then wear a different pair in the evening if she goes out, and then wear a different pair if she’s just hanging out at home.

I was dumbfounded. After considering various responses in my head , I finally just decided that we all have our things that we’re weird about, and I just let it drop.