It’s incurable, I think. So say the doctors, anyway. I’m besides myself. I’m doing my best to cope, but my ten-year-old has it uber-bad. I don’t know when it started, but I know that it’s consuming me with grief. No treatment for it, either.
They call it Inside-Out Disorder. I.O.D. for short.
There’s no entry into Wikipedia for it yet, so I’ll do my best to compose myself long enough to explain. When a person suffers from IOD, they are completely incapable of taking their clothes of properly.
See exhibit A:
It’s been a nightmare, I tell you. Day in, day out, wondering if the next piece of laundry you’ll pick up will the same, wishing for it to go away, and every day it rears it’s ugly head.
We tried taking classes to better prepare ourselves and our children for this. They even offered techniques to use to help combat this sickness. It went something a little like this:
Teacher: Class! Tell me, when you wear your clothing, what side do people see, inside or outside?
Class: Outside!
Teacher: Good! Now, tell me, what part of your clothing gets dirty when you wear it, inside or outside?
Class: Outside!
Teacher: Excellent! So, in your opinion, if people see the outside of your clothing when you wear them, and the outside of your clothing gets dirty, which side should be washed more, the inside or the outside?
Class: Outside!
Teacher: Wonderful! And so, when you take off your clothing, which side should be facing out to get washed more – inside or outside?
Class: Outside!
This is about the time in the class where I broke into tears. This teacher sure knew her stuff. Surely this would work! I loved it! My kids were beginning to grasp the depths of their illness. My ten-year-old smiled and cheered “Outside!” like everyone else did, even the healthy ones. Parents bonded through tears, it was magical.
Until I entered the laundry room the next day. {Insert sound of record scratch here} This is what I found. Again.
I am so doomed to live with I.O.D. for the rest of my life. I can hear the troubled calls from their future spouses now.
(Exactly a year ago I wrote about almost the exact same thing. Weird.)
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