Soaking Pink

Soak. It won’t stop raining outside and the washing machine still says soak. I may have to dry these with the hair dryer again, I thought. And I really wanted that little pink top that was soaking beneath the layers of bed sheets and towels, washed and dried as soon as possible.

“Pink suits you” he had said. So obviously I have to wear pink for our first meeting, and I had only one pink top. Soiled from last week’s puddle fiasco. Still soaking. The machine made gurgling noises like a happy baby who just burped. Gurgle-gurgle. And I went through the whole story of how I’m going to get late tomorrow. Unexpectedly.

“Call after class, tell her the class got postponed, tell her it will take two hours more, go on your date or whatever, call again and say there’s too much traffic, after you’re done call her and say you’re leaving, reach home and go straight to your room” Were some of the breathless suggestions I got from my friends.

I tried it. Later, I ended up telling the truth anyway.

 “Are you freaking crazy?? You can’t be serious, no no no you can’t say anything, she’ll freak out, blah blah………” After a while it was just noise. So here I was, mentally rehearsing my lie and mutely watching my dress of destiny soak away to glory. Oh my God just wash it already!!!

It had been just ten minutes since I threw the top in there, but I had snapped already. I stopped the washing machine, fished it out and started scrubbing the brown spots with my fingers. Tomorrow my handshake won’t be as delicate as I hoped, but he’ll understand. I hope. If mom would see me now! I smiled imagining the expression on her face of she saw me on the bathroom floor, hands full of detergent, scrubbing clothes.

She’ll be suspicious. “Yeah, don’t do anything suspicious like you do. You’re a terrible liar, you get so giggly, you start sweating and all, so just dress casually, don’t war make up, keep it in your bag if you want blah blah…” The girls have always been breathless while they talked and the thought of me going to meet a guy made them even more so.

I scrubbed until my fingers burned, and rinsed it again and again. Slush is not easily removed from light coloured clothes, and there were still a few light rings of brown on the side of the baby pink top. I can’t just pretend that’s a design……. And I gave up.

So finally on the 3^rd of August I went on a date with a dreamy guy, wearing something clean and blue.

“You look pretty. Green suits you” he said as soon as we sat down for coffee.

“This is blue” I gave him a weird look. But it didn’t matter. My pink top still soaked while we giggled and held hands at the coffee house.

And then came 4^th August, when I happened to attend a Bloggers meet. Surf Excel spread itself all over the place chanting “Soak no more”. Well, what can I say Pink Top.. You were just not meant to be what I wore when I met my soulmate.