Luggage On A Bad Day

Luggage On A Bad Day
Originally uploaded by natismspics.

What is that, a bad rash, splattered paint, or plain old dirt? Well, since this luggage has had neither the qualities of being human, a work of art (at least not in this case), or having had the opportunity to play in the sand box, you'll have to settle with the fact of it being nasty mold. Green, brown, black, and white oh my! This ultimately let a highly utilized piece of luggage to an unfortunate early retirement. I thought the cranky, stubborn zippers had portrayed the bag at its worst. At least it can look back on its short life of nine years with pride at having been lugged around the states and China. Even if I wanted to attempt to rescue it a full-size washer is not large enough to hold this fairly small world traveler. It didn't make the cut to accompany us on our far-flung adventures to Seoul, Korea, New Delhi, India, or Bangkok, Thailand, but I assure you it had a great life filled with purpose.
Okay, the rest of the story is not as interesting or fun, because of the lack of sunlight these days and a humungous jackfruit tree in the courtyard blocking the precious and necessary mold stunting rays our entire apartment is literally a scientific experiment gone extremely wrong or wonderfully right depending upon how you look at it, though I prefer the former. The advent of frequent rain during the night has caused the mold population to burgeon toward unprecedented levels. At least regarding anything I've ever experienced, that includes having lived in an aging home on a lake with a basement that seemed to combine the perfect ingredients for mold proliferation: dampness, darkness, and a plethora of unsuspecting and unprotected cloth and wood products to call home. Without a dehumidifier or a source of heat controlling the severity of the epidemic is near to impossible. By quick analysis one can easily point out the allergy sensitive eyes of Kim that are now typically a shade of pink, as well as the incessant cough the two of us have, whenever the spores are released to re-colonize everything that was once clean. To combat it the best we can I have championed the use of the ever popular alcohol based hand sterilizer as a chief deterrent that does a pretty good job, so I thought. A week later the mold was back and seemingly immune to my cleansing approach. Water is not used for obvious reasons and so a dry disposable quasi-paper towel, which is more like crape paper, has been employed to retard the spread. We've been for-warned that shoes, clothing, and most everything is next in line. Pray for sun and heat to spell an end to this endless cleaning detail.