Repressed

"Have you seen my Microsoft shirt?"

I'm catching a plane in a few hours, packing furiously as only a procrastinating packer like myself can do and I have this wild hair that I *need* my Microsoft shirt for the trip.

"Hey, I checked my closet, under the bed and behind the chair in the Blogorium, but I can't find it. Any ideas?"

"Oh, do you mean your very wrinkled Microsoft shirt?"

"I only have one Microsoft shirt, thank you very much, and I was luckier than a Texas Lotto winner to get it. Do you know where it is?"

"Yeah, it's wedged next to the ironing board in the cupboard under the stairs 'cause it needs ironing. The shirt, not the cupboard."

"OK, thanks, found it!"

So, here I am holding my very, very wrinkled Microsoft shirt in my hands minutes from leaving the house. Well, I'll iron it later. Surely the hotel will have an iron. Besides, in the state it's in right now, I can just cram it into my suitcase, don't even have to fold it and I'm good to go.

...much later at the hotel...

I unpack the very, very wrinkled Microsoft shirt and it's about the size of a peanut. But more wrinkled. Checking the tag in the collar I find that it's 200% Extra Wrinkly Cotton. Great. Extra wrinky cotton.

Not to worry, the hotel room has a Steam Iron and Ironing Board. In a few minutes my treasured shirt will be good as new. Or, so I thought.

The latch on the ironing board was broken. Up, down, up, down, up, down. Finally gravity wins. Thanks Isaac Newton. Yeah, in 100 years they'll have antigravity ironing boards but that doesn't help me now. The best I could do was to lay the ironing board on the little coffee table in the room. OK, that's not so bad. A little low, but this is a 5 minute job. I can kneel. What's the big deal?

The big deal was the steam iron manufactured in Elbonia that could achieve a maximum temperature of 78 degrees. Water leaked out of the "steam" chamber, not that the water ever achieved steam. Each "pressing" produced a wrinkly smear of water. The more I pressed the wetter the shirt got.

I turned up the steam iron setting to Inferno. Blazing heat! Steel melting heat! Wrinkly shirt pressing heat!

82 degrees.

I gave up. My hand was 10 degrees hotter than the iron. So, I started banging on the shirt with my hand and, surprisingly, it was working. Yes! My hand the Iron. Iron Hand. I was One with the Iron.

Finally, with a lot of pressing and banging on the shirt I achieved a level of dewrinkle-ification that would work. At least the sleeves didn't look like bellows. I did one last smoothing with my Iron Hand, then struck a pose, the Crane position, from Karate Kid Two. Iron Crane. Yeah, thats me. Watch out, bad boy! Or, I'll be forced to...press you.

Next time I'll plan ahead and iron at home.

Hmmm, I think I've said that before!