Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Shreddies

Caution, today's tale contains words that I can only describe to those of a certain age as 'language, Timothy!'

I have a constant source of amusement. I like to call it the terrible tearing tornado of terror and last week it claimed its latest victim.

Striking terror into the hearts of man no human has mastered or tamed it's wicked greed. Reaching terrifying speeds this vortex of velocity laughs at the brave...


Behold the fitness club spin dryer.

Over the years I have got used to its monsterous ways and now know how to firmly place my swimming gear safely at the bottom away from all the teeth and tearing. It only takes about five seconds with the lid shut to do its work, any longer and you risk destruction.

I can only assume its latest victim was a little inexperienced. He regarded it tentatively as he approached completely naked clutching his trunks and strangely a pair of underpants which too were soaking wet. After an all too brief glance at the extensive instructions he did what most newbies do and pretended he was dunking a basket ball throwing his soaking gear in then slamming the lid.

I should of warned him, I should of told him, I couldn't watch, I shouldn't watch.

I watched.

As soon as the lid is held down the full force of the vortex begins seeking out any weaknesses in the fibres. It started to squeak a little at five seconds, at ten seconds it was grinding but this guy was going for it, he was a twenty second demon.

Unfortunately as it hit the twenty second mark two things happened, first a tearing sound came from the vortex sounding very much like a very fast tremolo fart and incredibly similar to somebody ripping a yard of calico and secondly he raised the lid in panic rather too quickly and his trunks were unceremoniously catapulted into a corner leaving behind a small three inch strip hanging from the tornados mouth like a floppy tongue.

He stood there a few seconds trying to take it all in, unfortunately this also made him forget he was naked so when he went to retrieve his tattered trunks from the corner he for got to delicately lower himself and instead bent over. Now, I'm squeamish and I squirmed, even more so when he passed me on the way back and held out his trunks now reduced to several thong type strips.

'Have you seen what that bastard has done?'

I just looked at his face, you see he was still naked and his trunks were at trunk level where his trunk was and I don't look at strange men's trunks, certainly not after seeing his starburst. I shrugged but he went on.

'It's knackered them, I've dropped my underpants in the shower too, what a sh@£ day!'

Off he waddled towards the offending machine pulling thin threads of cloth from his slaughted trunks. Oh no, I thought, he's not going to attempt to dry his underpants is he?

He was.

A little more guile this time so he approached carefully and opened the lid. Softly he placed in his soaking shreddies, patted them down and started to close the lid. To make sure he didn't trap them he squatted to get a better view as it closed. Unfortunately I got a squatting squint winking back at me, he was still unclothed. Urgh.

Satisfied he pressed down the lid and gave it a two second blast. Pleased with himself that no mishaps occurred he peered in and touched his underpants. They were still wet, two seconds is no use to man nor beast in the world of drying spinnography. After a cursory poke he closed the lid again for another two seconds and pondered why it wasn't drying. From experience dear blog two seconds is barely enough time, no sooner has it started its process than you are suddenly cutting it short. I stood transfixed at this naked chap alternatively pressing, opening and poking so to speak his soaking undermeat garments to no avail.

Then a light bulb moment; simply place the ripped 'to within an inch of their lives' trunks on top to take any devastation unleashed and viola! You can leave it running as long as you like!

In theory it sounded plausible, in practice adding bits of strips of cloth on top was always going to cause problems as he found out quite quickly after ten seconds when the machine came to an expensive sounding stop. It's not very often you see somebody fume like in the cartoons. He pulled out his underpants in much the same way a magician would pull out a row of bunting from his sleeve; bits of string accompanied by tatters of fabric, some in V shapes.

'You absolute bastard!' He said holding the joined strips between hand to hand just like you would if you had cut out a row of men all joined together from a folded newspaper. No sewing bee in the world could put those together again. A sorry bit of elastic hung out of the trunk flap and it had gained enough leg holes to fit comfortably on a spider.

I turned away, unable to control myself anymore and buried my head in my towel to virtually laugh, cry my amusement away. The last image I had was of him stuffing his pants down the back of the locker for somebody else to puzzle over whilst struggling to pull up a pair of jeans over bare nether region skin and delicately pulling up the zip whilst bending forward to avoid trappage.

And that dear reader is why I always take a locker that has a great view of the terrible machine. W

ho will be its next victim I wonder?

Will it be you?

 

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