Crisis #1 or Guess Which Substance Saved My Brother's Life

Well, it's happened. The first of hopefully few (but I'm sure not) crisis have occurred, as a result of my brother living with us.

Let me first explain that Traci is very picky about her clothes and laundry. She doesn't like me doing the laundry, because I don't do it the way she likes it done... So I typically will avoid doing any laundry that contains any of her dress / work clothes (how much can you mess up socks, underwear, t-shirts, towels, or my clothes).

Jeff, however, is expected to do his own laundry. No problem.

Monday night he takes a load out of the dryer, and proceeds downstairs to sort and fold (washer/dryer are on the 2nd floor).

Next day, I receive this email at work:



Subject: Dryer

It seems that I had an accident with the dryer last night. There was an ink pen in my pants pocket, so there is some blue ink marks in the dryer. When I get home I will clean it out and see if I can save my clothes. Does Traci have any hair spray I can use :P

Arriving home at lunch, I inspect the dryer. His remark about "some blue ink marks" is a classic understatement made by a condemned prisoner right before execution. Pictures will soon be added to this post, but the pen did nothing short of explode... there was ink everywhere.

Apparently Jeff realized the pen had exploded in the dryer the night before, and searched Yahoo! Answers to find how to remove ink. Hair spray was the method he found.

Wanting to see how effective this would be before I told the wife, I tried it myself. Upon arriving back at work after lunch, I started looking to see if I could purchase a replacement dryer drum, because hair spray had little effect, and the wife was going to go nuts! There is NO WAY she was ever going to stick even a pair of socks in this dryer ever again... I (and my brother) were screwed!

I did my own search for a remedy online, and found several things:

Peanut Butter - allow to sit on ink for couple of minutes, then remove.
Vegetable Shortening (Crisco) - same as above
Mr. Clean Magic Erasers
Hair Spray - Already tried. Not promising.
Full-Strength Breck shampoo
Finger Nail Polish Remover
WD-40
Rubbing Alcohol
Goo Gone

That night, I purchased some of the items listed above (polish remover, different hair spray -- extra strength, and magic erasers). I am happy to report that finger nail polish remover has saved my brother's life. I will, however, caution anybody to make sure they have proper ventalation AND to allow the dryer (mine is a gas dryer) to properly dissipate the vapor before turning it on.

I only tried the magic erasers, extra-strength hair spray, rubbing alcohol, and lastly finger nail polish remover. Once we got to the polish remover, and saw it removed 99.99% of the ink stains, we stopped trying other things (Peanut Butter and Crisco would only have been attempted in lieu of a replacement drum).