GORDON LIGHTFOOT | Culture
MUST HAVE AT SOME POINT?
A fully domesticated Palmerston North man has been left puzzled after realising he cannot remember a single time he washed his sheets during his flatting years in Wellington.
30 year old Daniel McAllister now lives with his long-term partner Josie, who has successfully transformed him from a half-feral student into a reasonably acceptable human being. Sheets are now changed every two weeks like clockwork, sometimes weekly in summer.
But while folding fresh linen on Sunday afternoon, McAllister’s mind wandered back to his university days when he shared a four-bedroom flat in Newtown with four other guys.
“I was just thinking about how good clean sheets feel,” he told the Whakataki Times. “And then I suddenly thought… wait. Did I ever actually wash my sheets when I was flatting? Even once?”
After a few minutes of deep reflection, McAllister concluded that he must have at some stage.
“I mean, surely I did. Right? There’s no way I went three years without doing it. That would be gross. Wouldn’t it?” he said, before trailing off in uncertainty.
The former commerce student admitted his memory was a blur when it came to household chores in those years.
“We didn’t even own a vacuum cleaner for most of that time, so… yeah. I can’t rule out the possibility that the sheets just stayed on there for semesters at a time.”
Josie was not surprised by her partner’s revelation.
“Honestly, when I first saw the state of his sock drawer after we moved in together, I knew there had been zero systems in place before me,” she said. “I can imagine those sheets got a rinse maybe twice a year, tops.”
McAllister maintains that if he did wash them, it was probably at the laundromat down the road, “maybe when Mum came to visit.”
“Or maybe I just bought a new set once and threw the old ones out. I can’t remember. Anyway, I appreciate a nice clean sheet these days.”
More to come.
