Part of the destiny of the clothes we wear is to get dirty. When clothes get dirty, we take them for laundry. After washing them we put them out in the sun to dry. Some people use pegs to fasten their cloches on the line, others don’t bother, it seems. Some people look up in the sky for the sun to know where they’d place their clothes, others don’t bother, it seems. Some keep in mind the fact that their clothes are on the line outside, so they periodically go out to see how well the clothes are doing under the influence of the sun. They turn the clothes, as they deem fit, in relation to the sun. That is, they turn those sides that are not dry to the sun. Still, there are others who do not seem to care.
As should be expected, both sets of individuals get different sets of result. For the one the clothes dry up properly but for the other it is not so. The clothes get dry but not very dry. Such individuals do one of two things, they pack the clothes inside and wait to put them out in the sun the next day or they simply leave the half dry clothes in the closet, ready to ‘manage’ them like that.
Those who pack half dry clothes in the closet suffer a number of things: they suffer the corrupting influence of mucous and other bacteria. Some eventually lose the services of such clothes like Kalokalo, my friend of long ago.
Kalokalo was living as a squatter in one of the teaching hospitals at the time and attending a church in town. Someone in church picked interest in him and gave him some beautifully designed white shirts. I remember those shirts as if it were yesterday, Versace and Van Heusen shirts, about 5 pieces in all.
Kalokalo was very excited at the lovely gifts but decided he wasn’t going to share them with his fellow squatters with whom he had shared many things before this time. Of course, he did not tell anyone about his good fortune. Thus, he enjoyed his Versace and Van Heusen shirts alone. When the shirts became dirty and he needed to wash them, he did so inside the bathroom but rather than take them out in the open for them to dry very well, he placed them on a line in the balcony, where the sun couldn’t reach them very well. Just because he didn’t want his friends to notice his designer shirts (he didn’t want to have to ‘lend’ them the shirts for they necessarily would ask to ‘borrow’ the shirts, and he didn’t want to be placed in a difficult position.
Unfortunately, by his action, he kept the shirts away from the power of the sun. He made sure he brought in the shirts and placed them inside a bag in the wardrobe before his fellow squatters returned from work. He did this for a couple of days but on the fourth day he forgot to bring out the shirts and place them in the balcony because he needed to leave home to catch an early appointment. Also, he forgot that he had a special event to attend the following week.
On the morning of the event, he went to the wardrobe and pulled out the bag where he kept his special shirts What greeted his eyes when he brought out the shirts shocked him. They had spots all over. He also noticed some greenish-yellow stains on the shirts. And some unpleasant smell too. He quickly embarked on an emergency rescue mission for his shirts but it was futile. He could not salvage any of the white shirts!
