Top Tops: Don't Sweat the Small Scrud

Left to right: Monteau, Marshalls; Violet & Claire, Marshalls; IZ Byer, Kohl's; Fifth Sun, Target; Jennifer Lopez Collection, Kohl's; ELLE, Kohl's 

I like to think of myself as an equal opportunity clothes enthusiast, but there's something special about a top.  Even that short-lived reboot of "The Odd Couple" recognized it.  I still remember Oscar's agent complimenting Teri Hatcher on her blouse, then saying something like, "Women love their tops."  And we do!  Especially in today's Zoom corporate culture when it's the only part of our outfits that people see.  It's certainly changed the way I look at my closet.  I used to build an ensemble around a skirt, a pair of shoes, or even a particularly rad pair of tights.  Now the top has to stand on its own, which means that I reach for the splashier ones more often.  I always wear them with a denim mini and my fuzzy slippers.  I've come to think of it as my uniform, and I really like it.

Still, wearing more clothes (clothes, that is, other than pjs) means washing more clothes.  Just as hanging at home means investigating domestic annoyances I'd usually ignore.  For example, for the last year or so, I've been noticing small, greenish-brown, plasticky pieces adhering to my freshly washed laundry.  They weren't stains because I was able to pick them off.  And for that I was grateful.  Nevertheless, the whole thing bothered me.  I mean, my clothes are like my kids.  And you don't want to throw the baby out with the bath -- or, in this case, laundry -- water.  Sometimes I'd toss everything back into the washer.  Yet at the end of each cycle, I again spied the offending debris.  I'd indulge in an eye roll but then move on.  Until recently.  After finding one remnant too many, I couldn't deny that I should get to the bottom of it.  My friend the Internet would have the answer, even if it was one I didn't like.

It turns out that my mystery marks are what is known as "scrud."  A combination of "soap" and "crud," the word scrud refers to a mixture of detergent residue and mildew that brews beneath your washing machine's drum.  When you run a cycle, the scrud sheet or roll or whatever breaks off into little pieces and lands on your clothes.  I was flummoxed.  The washer was supposed to get my clothes cleaner, not spray them with mold's answer to dandruff.  So, I went on Amazon, determined to find a scrud-buster.  I came up with a product called Affresh and ordered it.  All I had to do was drop a tablet in the washer and turn it on hot for the longest cycle.  The package said that I "might see residue" afterwards, but when I opened the lid, I was unprepared for the Pollack painting of strange, spinach-like strips clinging to the white spinny thing.  I was mesmerized yet disgusted, disgusted yet mesmerized.  Per the package (that dubious guide), if I had a particularly filthy and/or smelly machine, then I could run as many as four cycles.  I ignored that and used up the whole box, all the while hearing TLC's "Scrubs" on a loop in my head:  

"No, I don't want no scrub

A scrub is a guy that can't get no love from me

Hangin' out the passenger side

Of his best friend's ride (oh)

Trying to holla at me."

As TLC says, "a scrub is a guy who thinks he's fine."  Much like scrud, which tries to pass itself off as mere recycled soap.  Um, yeah, recycled soap scum -- and dirt.  Is pond scum copacetic because swans used to glide across its once pristine surface?  I think not.   

Anyway, I've (almost) made peace with the fact that scrud will be my unwelcome houseguest for awhile.  It'll dissipate after many cycles, the towels and other workaday items thankfully sanitized by the dryer's vigilante lint trap.  In the meantime, I'm resigned to picking the pieces off my drip dry dress clothes.  To that end, here's a happy band of ROYGBIV blouses (even if the blue one is clearly a tee shirt).  I'm proud to report that all are scrud free.  

If only I could say the same about my scalp and dandruff.  

TV Tuesday: Drop Dead Diva Descends

Lifetime's "Drop Dead Diva" is the quintessential guilty pleasure summer soap.  As frothily frivolous as the season itself, the courtroom dramedy about the reincarnation of aspiring model Deb Dobkins as overweight lawyer-with-a-heart Jane Bingham (Brooke Elliot) demands a certain suspension of disbelief.  Jane just happens to work for the same law firm as Deb's fiance, the kind and handsome Grayson (Jackson Hurst).  But is he kind enough to look past Jane's less-than-model appearance to find the soulmate within?  That's what Deb must determine.  In the meantime, she revs up Jane's life and wardrobe, bringing - and yes, I must say this - style to trial.  Sassy secretary Teri (Margaret Cho) and cutthroat counselor Kim (Kate Levering) are along for the ride, furnishing corporate stereotypes that lend normalcy to an otherwise cosmic conundrum.

Now that the show is in its fourth season, Grayson is finally starting to put the pieces of Jane's identity together.  Meanwhile, Jane's guardian angel, Fred (Ben Feldman), reveals his identity to his girlfriend (and Jane's BFF) Stacy (April Bowlby), a no-no so huge that it sends him hurtling back to heaven.  I couldn't help but be struck by how easily Grayson and Stacy accept the otherworldly nature of their (in Grayson's case, would-be) significant others.  I know it's a TV show, but a little healthy fear would have been convincing!

Sunday's surprises weren't limited to the supernatural.  Kim Kardashian appeared in the nominal role of barista-slash-relationship guru, ostensibly for the sole purpose of dispensing initially questionable but ultimately sage advice to Stacy.  None of Diva's signature Ally McBeal-meets-Scrubs-style dream sequences debuted this time, but then there was already a lot going on, and you can't show all your cards too early.  Overall, this was a fun and satisfying season premiere, reminding us, as ever, that the universe has a sense of humor.

Heart and Humor Meet in (ABC's) The Middle

Last fall, when the new sitcom The Middle was introduced to ABC's Wednesday night line-up, I didn't like it at all. The show centered around the Hecks, a middle-class, middle American family planted firmly and unpretentiously in Indiana. You had Mike, the straight-talking quarry manager dad (Scrubs's Neil Flynn); Frankie, a frazzled used car saleswoman-slash-supermom (Patricia Heaton, Everybody Loves Raymond); Axl, their popular football playing teenage son; Sue, their awkward preteen daughter who gets cut from every team she tries out for; and Brick, their brilliant but socially hopeless second grader. Weekly plots focused on all the icky little details of work and home life: paying bills on time, shopping for suspect meat at the discount grocery store, getting the kids to do their homework, squeezing in family dinners, shopping for anniversary present carpet remnants, trying not to be late for work, etc. To be honest, it depressed me. So I stopped watching, clicking over to the vapid but more cheerful (and now cancelled) Gary Unmarried on CBS until it was time for the upper middle-class glamor of Modern Family to dazzle me as far away from reality as was possible.

Things went on like this until mid-season last year when I decided to give The Middle another chance. And you know what? I started to feel ashamed of my prematurely snobby dismissal. I started to, well, like it. Because behind all the tedium, the Hecks had something that most sitcom families didn't: heart. Their struggles became more funny than bleak, probably because they rang true. I especially liked Brick, endeared by his kooky, too-cerebral-for-his-own-good differentness and the way he repeated the things he said out loud in whispers. Before long, The Middle had eclipsed Modern Family for the top spot in my Wednesday night TV-viewing affections.

I still watch and enjoy Modern Family. But sometimes its big, perfect houses seem kind of cold compared to the Hecks's lived-in rancher with the unfinished basement and lime green living room. Similarly, "Modern Family's" three couples seem to be strained by tensions that remain unresolved even after plots are sewn up. Although Mike and Frankie Heck squabble over the usual who's-going-to-drive-the-kids-to-practice sort of issues, they never seem to resent each other as lingeringly as Phil and Claire Dunphy. Interestingly, Claire (Julie Bowen) sometimes reminds me of the high-strung stay-at-home mom that Heaton used to play on Raymond. Although considerably poorer and more heavily burdened, Heaton's character on The Middle appears happier and more grounded. Of course, that could just be because her mother-in-law isn't lurking across the street . . .