Stupid, stupid, stupid bleach! Stupid, stupid, stupid me! Stupid, stupid, stupid pants! Why didn't I take my sweater off?! Why did I even try to change the pants?! I didn't really expect it to work, after all, it was just "worth a try." Well, it wasn't! My favorite sweater--bleached. Just a small smudge, but when, how? I felt so pleased with myself. I thought, "See, I can handle this bleach, I'll just be really careful." But no. Too much cocky. Not enough caution. I should have just left well enough alone. If Caleb wore the pants, fine; if not, so what. Now the pants look worse and I have a bleach smudge to try and fix on one of my favorite sweater. Argh! Sometimes life is just so exasperating. Why can't it be perfect with no mistakes or errors? If I could just rewind this night. . .
That was last Friday night. I picked some decorative patches off a thrift store pair of pants in Caleb's size. The removal of the patches revealed non-lightened fabric underneath. I decided to try and lighten the pants with bleach. Now bleach and I have a turbulent past. In my college days, I spilled some on the carpet of my apartment. I've also bleached towels by rubbing my not-washed-enough hands on them after using bleach. I use a non-bleach disinfectant in the kitchen. Bleach and I just do not get along. But I really wanted to get rid of those dark sections on the pants. The patches were tacky in my opinion, but the dark shapes they left behind were not appealing either.
The bleach did lighten the areas, but it also lightened the fabric right around the dark area as well. Not the effect I was hoping for, but not tragic either. Then I walked down to the bathroom and saw myself in the mirror. I was horrified by the bleach smudge on my sweater. Frustrated, disgusted. I wrote the above in an effort to clear my head so I could sleep. It was not a good discovery to make at midnight.
My brain mulled the problem over the following day. Crayons, markers, dye, ink. I decided to try stitching over the area with a matching thread. Eureka! The thick cotton threads used to knit the sweater varied in color enough to make my camouflage successful. I can still pick out the damaged area quickly, but it's not glaring anymore. As long as the bleach didn't weaken the threads too much, the sweater and I have many happy years remaining.
Ironically, Caleb looked at the pants the next day and said he thought they were cool that way. Obviously, I should have consulted the wearer of the pants before I tried to do anything to them. Maybe I'll let him decorate the rest. Just not with bleach.
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