Our washing machine has had its way with my husband’s cigarette lighters, pocket knives and even a bullet. Yes, a live round that was in his jeans pocket. Luckily all those things had in common is that they came out clean.

Rarely did Bill leave money in his pockets. He did leave an empty money clip one time, but usually if he left anything it might be some change.

Over the years I’ve washed my Sonic mints, Chapstick, business cards, tissues, grocery lists and even baby diapers. Not the cloth kind since 1965, but a paper one made it in with some towels and was a big mess.

Some of those items, including one of my husband’s loafers, even made it in to the dryer. The racket they made going round and round usually caused me to find them before I started up the dryer for a second run.

One time the late Dan Craun and his then-assistant and nephew, Monty Moery, came to fix a dryer problem. When they finished, Dan, a high school classmate of my husband’s, said Bill had set the record for having the most money they’d every found in a dryer.

I corrected him.

“If it was folding money then it was mine,” I told Dan. “He doesn’t leave valuable stuff in his pockets.”

Although there was one time when Bill took his suit to the Oxford Cleaners and left something valuable in the coat pocket.

Annie Fuksa from the cleaners called the office and asked if Bill was missing something. He was always misplacing his keys, and had several spares, so I thought that’s what it was.

Turned out it was a diamond ring.

One that had belonged to his grandmother, and God only knows where it is now.

That said, I need to admit that I lost something last week, but didn’t know I had when I heard clanking from the clothes dryer.

I thought it was change.

It was loud, so a lot of change

I ignored it.

It turned out to be my car keys: the keyless entry car fob.

It was intact, but, it took me awhile before I tried to open the car doors from the front porch.

It worked!

Then I tried the auto start button.

It worked.

Everything works.

After I go to Enid tomorrow I’ll have a backup set. It will cost about $200 for the fob and $100 to set it up.

The moral to this story is that it’s easier on your nerves and cheaper to checkbook if you check your jeans pockets before you turn on the washer. And the dryer.