I believe that adulthood presents you with some unusual trials, like discovering that detergent has become a drink for a denialist nutjob, and that toilet paper doesn't unroll itself unless your cat makes a mess of it on some random midnight.
There are others, of course, just as mundane, like going to the laundry. I've been doing this for a short time and realized how this damp ecosystem is filled with sociological traps.
The laundry is a place where others' intimacy is exposed, spinning at a thousand revolutions per minute behind a fogged-up glass. It was during one of these visits, armed with a basket of dirty clothes and the naivety of a novice, that fate played a trick on me.
I collected my clothes from the dryer and folded everything with the haste of someone who wants to get back on the couch. When organizing the drawers, I noticed an intruder. A red pair of underwear. Not a subtle red. It was a vibrant red, almost radioactive, a red that screamed "I don't fear fading in the wash."
I don't have red underwear. My drawers are a monotonous gradient of gray, black, and navy blue, the standard uniform of urban male melancholy. That red piece was an alien in my wardrobe. I wondered who the owner was and what that pair of underwear had lived through.
I thought about returning it. "I'll take it down tomorrow and leave it on the counter," I promised. But tomorrow never came. The red underwear stayed there, in the dirty clothes basket, staring at me with all its audacious scarlet every time I approached.
Weeks passed, and the underwear was buried under other pieces. It was time to wash clothes again. On autopilot, I grabbed everything from the basket, took it downstairs, washed, dried, and brought it back up. When I went to store it... there it was. I had washed it again. I told Alexa to note the message and remind me the next day. "Return the underwear."
For a moment, I not only had kidnapped it, but also kept it in a bizarre regime of captivity with full board. It had an owner, and it wasn't me. I felt a mix of guilt and absurdity. And, for some silly reason, I had a distaste for it.
I decided to put an end to it. A cotton murder. But I hesitated. What if he's attached? The underwear had already gained entity status in my house.
The next time I went to the laundry room, the damned one was in my bag, ready to be returned. As the machine spun, I sat down and opened a book, trying to pretend I wasn't carrying a stranger's underwear in my pocket. I felt awkward putting it on the counter because there were other people around.
Not just anyone, these are the ones who start conversations in the laundry room. They exist. Then a guy started talking. We talked about the weather, the building manager, the soap inflation. Small talk. The conversation flowed into football. He sighed heavily and, with the naturalness of someone confessing a sin, he said:
— To make matters worse, I lost my lucky underwear here a month ago. I'm a Flamengo fan. I had a red pair that I only wore on classic days. It disappeared in the dryer. Without it, Mengão lost the last game.
I, a São Paulo fan since birth, froze. My hand, which instinctively went to my pocket, stopped halfway. The red fabric seemed to burn my fingers.
I looked at the guy. He had a sad look, as if he believed the team depended on that piece of underwear. I thought about my Tricolor fighting in the championship and my own fan chants. I thought about Flamengo. I thought about the red underwear, clean, softened with lavender, a hostage in my left pocket.
I did what any ethical man and football enthusiast would do in that situation.
I remained absolutely silent.
— Oh man... how boring — I sighed, with a choked voice, feigning sympathy. — The machine always eats something.I consoled him..
He nodded, resigned. He gathered his clothes and left with his bag, carrying his team's hope with him. And I stood there, with my underwear in my pocket. Alone, I left it on the counter, looking around, and decided to write an impromptu note.
It belongs to a Flamengo fan. Please respect. He will return.
I returned to the apartment satisfied. I took the clothes out of the bag, folded them carefully, and stored them away. To my surprise and dismay, there was a sock. Just the right foot, of those with printed capybaras wearing sunglasses.
It's not possible,I thought.
I held up the sock against the light to better observe the capybara with its crimping glasses.tug lifeIf Flamengo lost the game because of the underwear, what could have been at stake with that capybara sock? Whether or not, I started wearing the sock to watch São Paulo's games. After some time, the conclusion: if the universe was trying to give me an advantage, it definitely didn't work.