Striped Underpants was annoyed. The dryer cycle had been well and truly over now for a long while. All the clothes were getting tired of waiting all rumpled in a pile at the bottom of the big drum. If Body didn’t come along soon and gather them up they were going to wrinkle, and no one liked being wrinkled.

What they liked was being folded or hung alongside like clothes, clean and ready to wear.

Still, Stripey liked to keep a positive attitude. It was important for underpants to be solid and dependable. Not like those flaky hats or wildly colored ties, or worse yet… bow ties. He tried to make himself as comfortable as possible.

“This sucks.” said Cycling Jersey. “Where the hell is Body? It’s getting cold.”

“Take it easy,” Stripey said. “We’re all in this together. Look on the bright side.”

“Okay I will. At least I don’t wrinkle like you do, cotton ball.”

Jersey was made of the latest moisture-wicking technical fabric and never really let anyone forget it. He was also new and being worn a lot because Body had gotten into cycling recently and really taken to it. Cycling Shorts laughed along with Jersey.

“No one cares if underpants are wrinkled, Jersey. Give it a rest.” Stripey said. Not snapped, he thought. His tone was even.

Silence fell once again, broken only by the cycling clothes snickering to one another. Striped Underpants let it roll off.

The dryer door opened. Stripey thought “Finally!”.

But it was not Body at the door. It was some other clothes’ body. Well, this happened often enough. This strange body would just close the door and use another one of the dryers. The strange body looked in, looked at her wet clothes, looked at her watch, and looked back into the occupied dryer. Why wasn’t she closing the door? The strange body bit her lip, and a long moment passed.

Then she just started shoveling her own wet clothes in as if the dryer were empty! Chaos erupted. The incoming wet female clothes landed willy nilly on the dry male clothes. Wet jeans thundered in, heavy with water. Stripey caught a glimpse in slow motion of the foreign watch on the strange body’s wrist. It was screaming “What in the name of god?” at the very top of its volume as another handful was tossed in.

There were many cries and shouts, and before anyone could figure anything out or get a sense of just what in the hell was transpiring, the dryer started up with all the clothes in it and began to tumble everyone.

There was nothing anyone could do but calm down and stop screaming. Their cries were unintelligible over the sound of the dryer anyway. Only the loudest shout could be heard over the din, such as when Jersey typically called out “First to dry!” during the cycle. Stupid technical fabric, Stripey thought.

But even Jersey was too bewildered to be a smug prick this time. He was dry, but then damp after the female jeans slapped against him, but then dry again. All he could do was glare. It gave Stripey some small satisfaction, but Jersey was at least clothes form the same body. These wet usurpers… how rude!

After a long tumble, the dryer buzzed and stopped. An odd calm settled. No one spoke.

It was Jersey who broke the silence.

“What’s up, ladies?” He sounded oily somehow to Stripey. If Stripey had had and head, arm and hand, he’d have slapped his forehead in a fit of pique.

“Hey guys,” a girl-cut tee said. “Hey, technical fabric huh?”

“That’s riiiiiight..” Jersey oiled again in his best euro smarm. Stripey cut him off.

“Jesus. Jersey, shut up. Ladies, hello. Now, what the hell?”

“How should we know? Body just threw us in here. Wasn’t like we dove in.” This from the girl jeans.

“Okay, okay. But you’re mostly still damp and we’re all dry a second time. What kind of body does a thing like this?”

“Our body, apparently. She’s gonna be late. Maybe YOUR body should have come and gotten you sooner, huh?”

“That’s what I said,” Jersey put in “but he’s probably exercising. That’s why there’s so much.. technical fabric around.”

The girl cut tee giggled for seemingly no reason whatsoever. There appeared to be some sort of unspoken but significant communication between her and Jersey that was utterly lost on Stripey, but then articles of clothing all behaved differently. Who knew with those cycling clothes? They didn’t even use underwear. Who doesn’t get worn with underwear, for god’s sakes?

Just then the door opened and Body’s face appeared. “..the fuck?” he said.

“No shit!” said Stripey.

“Aw, man…” said Jersey.