The clothes horse contributes to creating more dampness issues than it solves in drying.
Note we say that it ‘contributes’ rather than it is responsible, because it is the washing machine that gets the ball rolling. Consider the long johns top and bottoms. When we take them out of the wash we witness a phenomenon. One arm of the top and one leg of the bottoms have turned inside out. Naturally they are damp and need to be hung on a clothes horse to dry. So here’s the conundrum. Do we hang them up as is, the limbs twisted so that they ride the clothes horse side saddle, or do we brave reaching within the damp long john arm or leg to correct the disfigurement? Either way we run the very real threat of experiencing uncomfortable dampness. If we hang twisted, the crotch on the bottoms or the armpit on the top will dry at a slower rate than the rest of the garment. On the other hand, if we reach inside the sleeve or leg, we dampen the sleeve of the top we are already wearing.
‘So, we are left with dampness in the crotch’, you might think (flippantly). ‘I’ve dealt with underpants in the past where I wore them before the waistband properly dried’ you say with a touch of bravado. ‘They dried off in the wear’ - much like you run off a dead leg if you take a hit in a football match. ‘Sure they left a little red rash or sore’, you admit. But what if you’re a resident of Greenland? A Greenlander? Present any dampness to the Arctic air and you’re playing with frostbite. And frostbite is not a fun playmate (usually, or perhaps never – definitely veering towards the ‘never’ scale of things). So you right the damp leg of your long john bottoms, your sleeve emerges damp, the doorbell rings, you answer, you hold the door open for a delivery man to duck under your arm and deliver whatever he is delivering, next thing you know you’ve a frozen sleeve holding your arm aloft in the holding the door open position in a kind of frozen ‘Seig Heil’. Or had you hung up twisted, you’ve exposed a damp armpit. (CLICK ON 'Read more' LINK, BELOW)
