Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Laundry 101
It was the rangers' day off. This was a very rare thing. Almost always, they were working at JKP or had training or had to go save the city from bad guys. Not today though. Theo, Lily, RJ, and Fran had decided to go and spend all day at the movie theatres watching every fathomable new release showing. Casey decided to stay behind. He wasn't really big on movies.
The red ranger thought it would be a sweet gesture if he did Lily's laundry while she was away. After all, what screams romantic gesture more than a guy doing your laundry? There was one problem though. One very huge problem. The poor tiger had never done laundry before in his life. When he was living at home with his parents and sisters, his mother always did his laundry for him.
Lily's living quarters weren't exactly tidy. They were neater than his, that was for sure. However, they weren't as neat as Theo's was. Then again, nobody's living quarters were neater than Theo's. That guy was so weird that even his dirty laundry was neatly folded. How Casey knew this was beside the point.
The tiger picked up all the clothes strewn on the floor and dumped in the closet and put them in a laundry basket. He then took them to the laundry room region of the loft. Luckily for him, the two machines that looked more alike than Casey thought they probably should had the words "dry" and "wash" on them. Thank goodness because otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to tell them apart.
He opened up the washer and dumped all the clothes in the machine. He shut the door. The red ranger couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing something. Surely, there was something else he needed to do before starting the washer, but what was it?
Detergent.
The red ranger stared at two bottles before him full of detergent. One was Clorox and the other was Clorox 2. He had no clue what the difference was between the two, or for that matter if there even was a difference between the two.
When it came to 50/50 decisions such as this, being the superstitious guy he was, Casey always resorted to a simple coin toss. He took his lucky penny out of his pant pocket and flipped it through the air.
"Okay, heads I'll use Clorox. Tails, and I'll use Clorox 2," he said out loud even though there was no one else in the loft with him.
The penny landed on the ground, and Casey bent over to see what it had landed on. It landed with the heads side facing up.
"Clorox it is," the red ranger stated.
There was still a problem though. Exactly how much detergent were you supposed to use? The red ranger decided to just use a guestimate and dumped a generous amount of detergent into the washer after reopening the door. He then shut the door.
"Now, how do I start this thing?" Casey asked as his tongue stuck out the corner of his mouth as he was deep in thought.
Apparently, there was this dial thingamajig that had different load sizes. Small? Medium? Large? According to who? He didn't think the load was gargantuan or anything, so he set the dial on 'Small.'
The red ranger was horrified when he saw a second dial. It said something about warm water or cold water. He wondered what difference it makes what temperature of water is used. It was time for another coin toss. He pulled out his trusty lucky penny once more.
"Okay, heads and I'll use cold water. Tails, and I'll use warm water since cold comes before warm alphabetically just like heads comes before tails alphabetically," the tiger commented.
Once more, the penny hurdled through the air. It landed on the floor for a second time, and this time, it landed with the tails side facing up.
"Warm water it is," Casey stated turning the dial appropriately.
He took a step back and dusted off his hands quite proud of his handiwork. That wasn't so bad. However, he noticed that the washer wasn't making any noise. Was it even plugged in? What seems to be the problem here?
Then, it hit him like a ton of bricks. The second dial had written instructions on it that read 'Pull to start.' Casey felt like a complete idiot. He pulled the second dial out. As luck would have it, he pulled with so much gusto that the dial completely came off, and he fell on his rear end. The good news though was that the washer finally started.
"Why does doing laundry have to be so complicated?" the red ranger asked.
PRJF-PRJF-PRJF
About forty minutes later, and Casey heard a buzzing sound. His first instinct was that there was some monster loose terrorizing the citizens of Ocean Bluff. Thus, he raced to the living room area of the loft only to find that all was quiet downtown. He wondered what that buzzing noise was then.
The noise sounded like some animal was dying or was at least in tremendous pain. What's worse was the noise wasn't stopping. It didn't take much longer for Casey to ascertain that the noise was coming from the washing machine.
He opened it up and started to remove the contents and place them on top of the washer. As he did so, he realized that he must have done something wrong. All of Lily's white clothes were now pink. All of her colored clothes had little bleach blotches on them.
"Uh-oh." Casey said. "Hey, there's my red hooded sweatshirt! I've been looking for this!"
The red ranger hastily dumped the wet clothes into the dryer. He saw a box of fabric softener sheets on top of the dryer. Apparently, that had to mean something Casey guessed.
He picked up the box of fabric softener sheets and examined it. They seemed pretty small. He wondered how many he was supposed to put in the dryer. Surely it required more than one, right?
Casey refused to read the directions on the box. He after all wasn't that clueless. No way would he stoop to doing something absurd like that. Instructions are for wimps!
"Hmm…60 sheets. That sounds about right," the red ranger remarked dumping the whole box into the dryer before shutting the door.
He looked at the dryer and saw that it too had an accursed dial on it. This one had numbers that were multiples of 10 up to 60.
"How the heck am I supposed to know how many minutes the dryer should run for? Urgh! I'll just pick 30. That's right in the middle!" the red ranger said.
He learned his lesson from last time, and gently pulled the dial…only the dryer didn't start.
"Never again!" Casey exclaimed regretting even deciding to do Lily's laundry in the first place.
It was then that he noticed a button to the right of the dial. He wondered what that was for. It didn't have any written instructions on it. He closed both of his eyes as he pushed it. He jumped a little when the dryer started.
PRJF-PRJF-PRJF
A little while later, and Casey could have sworn that he smelt something burning. He followed his nose and saw that the dryer was completely ablaze. It was smoking like crazy too.
"Great! This isn't happening!" the tiger commented before scrambling off to find the fire extinguisher.
After finding it under the kitchen sink, he sprayed the flame retardant on the dryer that for all intents and purposes was now a s'more. Once the blaze was put out, he cautiously opened the door afraid of what he might see.
"If the clothes weren't ruined before, they definitely are now," the red ranger remarked slapping himself on the forehead.
He pulled out one item of clothing. It was completely charred. The good news was that Lily's white clothes weren't pink anymore.
PRJF-PRJF-PRJF
When RJ, Theo, and Lily returned to the loft, the first thing they noticed was that the place smelt like smoke.
"Did you burn something?" Theo asked.
Casey chuckled nervously. He let out an obnoxious yawn. "I'm beat. So, goodnight all," he said before getting out of dodge.
"I wonder why Casey was acting so weird," Lily said.
Moments later, a deafening scream reverberated off the walls of the loft. It without question came from Lily.
"Where are all my clothes?" she shouted.
She then remembered Casey's strange behavior earlier. It didn't take her long to put two and two together.
Soon, Lily was right beside Casey's hammock.
"Casey! I think you owe me an explanation!" she yelled.
It was at this moment that the tiger started fake snoring. Lily wasn't about to fall for that however. She knew for a fact that Casey didn't snore.
She flipped his hammock upside down dumping him on the hardwood floor below.
"Ow! What the heck was that for?" he retorted.
"Where are my clothes?"
"Funny story really."
"Casey!"
"I tried to wash them for you but ended up burning them instead. It's not all bad though. I definitely learned from my mistakes."
"You burnt them all?"
"How about I take you clothes shopping tomorrow? My treat."
The End