I hope there is never a day when every one in the world has a computer and a cell phone.  I tend to enjoy hearing the words, “I don’t have a computer” or “I don’t have a smart phone” once in awhile when I’m required to ask if I can register a shopper for our savings emails or texts when I’m at work.  There aren’t many of them around anymore but when I find one I usually end up having a rather interesting conversation that takes me back to place in my past, when I too, was without those modern day “necessities.”

The other day I was enjoying a nice visit with an elderly couple about laundry.  It seems I can never remember just how these conversations get started but I almost always learn something and it’s almost always interesting.  This time I was told I would never have whiter whites if I was willing to add 1 cup of vinegar to my wash water just after the wash cycle ends but before the rinse cycle begins.  I was told to turn the washer back so that it washed the load again with the existing detergent and that 1 cup of vinegar.   Once this “whitest whites” secret had been revealed the elderly gentleman standing next to his wife displayed a pleasant smile.  It almost felt as if he could  literally see the question that had formed in my brain and he said, “No, your clothes won’t smell like vinegar.”

His wife told me it was a trick she learned from an elderly woman she worked for years ago.   She told me she remembered walking into the woman’s laundry room and immediately noticed a rather unusual amount of vinegar on the shelves.  She was curious but decided to wait until she felt a bit more at ease around the woman before she asked and that is when she found out the secret she shared with me.  Years ago women hung their laundry outside to dry on their clotheslines for all the world to see and there wasn’t a single one that wanted to hang out whites that weren’t snow white!

I enjoy my little visits with the wonderful people I see every day and this particular one helped me to realize there is still some “old fashioned” left in this world and I love it!  As she was getting ready to leave she added one final thought to what she had already told me and she said it in such a way that it made me feel that she believed it was something every woman needed to know.  She said, “If you wash your whites the way I do you’ll never have to worry about those nasty yellow spots on your husband’s hankies again!  The vinegar takes ’em right out!”

I’ve spent the better part of a lot of my days worrying about a lot of different things that I didn’t have an immediate fix for but if I ever find myself  overcome with a pile of stained white hankies I won’t have to waste a second of my time worrying.  I’ll just get out the vinegar and wash those nasty yellow stains right down the drain! Life is good, yes it is!