Lesson #1: Soap cleans everything!

I don't know how, but when I eat, everything ends up on my pants.  I mean, there's the obvious: pasta, Indian food, the occasional wine spill.  But, I assure you, everything ends up on my pants.  That includes sandwiches, burritos, even jolly ranchers, and (I guess I'm not eating it but it's remarkable nonetheless) toothpaste.  In fact, there have been times where I've garnered a round of applause when I've finished a meal without covering half my body in sauce.  More often than not, the applause comes right before a glass of milk goes by the wayside and drips down my pant legs.  There's a funny story involving a seafood enchilada and a pitcher of margarita, but I'll save that for another time...

Suffice to say, I'm a bit of an expert in dealing with stained clothes, especially when the stains appear at inopportune times.  One solution is simply to carry around a handy Tide-to-Go or Oxiclean portable stain removing pen.  I'll be honest though, the types of stains I'm talking about would require 3 or 4 pens worth of stain remover alone.  In general, I always need another option, and given the frequency of my... mishaps... it needs to be accessible no matter where or when my issues occur.

Fear not! The simplest, most effective way to deal with that unfortunate salsa blob on your shorts is also the most accessible and perhaps most obvious thing you can think of.  SOAP AND WATER!  Perhaps for many this doesn't warrant an explanation (and certainly not its own lesson), but I have been skeptical enough of this fix to have not even attempted it until a few short hours ago.  

Sitting in lab and about to attend a reception in a few short hours, I looked down to see trail of dried hot sauce and sour cream trickling down my pants.  Now, I wasn't exactly "surprised" at this sight, and usually I keep an extra pair of pants in my office (now you understand just how messy I am), but this time I was unprepared.  The only resort I had was to head to the bathroom, douse myself with hot water and industrial quality hand foam, and pray to God that none of my professors felt an urgent bowel movement during my repair job.  Here are the steps:

1) Identify the stain... ALL OF IT.  Often, I consider myself triumphant after tackling the large gob of spilled lentils on my shirt collar, only to realize that the gob spawned its offspring across my entire back.  Check your entire body.

2) Wet a paper towel with some hot water and dab the stains on both sides of the fabric.

3) Pump several dollops (?) of the hand foam onto another paper towel and rub in vigorously into the stain.

4)  Let the soap sit for a few seconds before rinsing it off with another hot, wet, paper towel (don't get too excited now either).

5)  Repeat the above steps several times.  You will, I repeal, you will end up with a wet pant leg or arm sleeve at the end of this process, so make sure you can stay away from judgmental company for about a half an hour.

I promise you, as long as you didn't just combine blood, urine, and feces in a beaker and dip your shirt into it over a Bunsen burner, you can probably get the stain out as long as you act quickly enough.

As for me, I arrived at the reception looking clean as a whistle... until I decided to help myself to a plate of baked beans.  Luckily, there was a bathroom there too!