Wash 'n glo

Feel the clean.

“Those bags under my eyes? That’s where I stashed my tears.”

The older kids used to hang out in the hallway outside my high school cafeteria. They’d stand against the painted cinder wall shoulder to shoulder, waiting for students to pass on their way to lunch.

It was a very efficient and thorough inspection method. After all, a kid’s got to eat. And what did the hallway inspectors look for?

Defects, really. Any signs that these fresh, young students might not fit in with the rest of the product line. They were trained to detect irregularities.

Things like wearing a turtleneck in spring. Carrying too many books. Looking weak and pale and awkward. Funny looking.

When a kid showed any of these signs, the washing machine kicked in. The first inspector pushed him to the inspector on the opposite side, who, in turn, pushed the kid to another inspector standing opposite. The process went on, amid guffaws and cackles and various humiliations, until the kid emerged, at last, at the end of the hall.

Lunch time.

Some kids couldn’t be washed though, no matter how many times they went through the process. They were just too weird. Too soft. Too wrong. They didn’t survive high school. And if they did, they were maimed. This world could never be their home.

But the washing machine wasn’t so much about bullying. It was educational. Kids had to learn how to pass the inspection.

A few tips: Puff up your chest. Sometimes, the cleaners will think you’re more trouble than you’re worth. Wear the same boring clothes they do. Join the football team. Maybe, most importantly, apply for membership in their ranks. Be mean. Show zero vulnerability. Laugh. Mock. Smirk.

I don’t blame the older kids. They come from a long line of launderers. They’d been scrubbed clean themselves, probably at an early age. They were just doing their job. Besides, if they didn’t, someone else would. There are all kinds of washing machines in the world.

Technically, most kids did survive the washing machine — with all the kinks thoroughly ironed out. And the older boys in the cafeteria hall could take a bow. Another successful product. Clean as a whistle. And ready for the big, old laundromat of life.

What I didn’t realize until much later was that no matter how many layers of armor we contort ourselves to fit into, we’re still oyster-soft on the inside. At least, most of us. And wearing plates on top of plates of armor brings much chafing and discomfort. There are gaps in the armor though. That’s where the drugs fit in. For the pain.

In addiction, I spent every waking moment grasping for an anaesthetic.

In recovery, I came to understand that it was much better for a body and soul to figure out how to remove all that armor — then it was to smoke crack.

I’d never survive the washing machine today. I’ve been wearing my oyster-heart on my sleeve for more than a year now. It turns out, being soft and vulnerable is the only way to grow.

I was reminded of the washing machine the other day, when a friend sent me a video. It was one of those Instagram accounts with huge followings that makes fun of addicts. This one had a narrator, pretending to be Richard Attenborough — you know, the guy who describes animals in the wild in nature documentaries.

The video captured an addict, frozen with his head in a garbage bin. The narrator has a lot of fun with it. And so do the tens of thousands of people who cheered and guffawed and emoji’d on the sidelines.

We’re still doing it, aren’t we? Another washing machine, in the laundromat of life.

Sad to say, I don’t think this addict — like countless others — will survive it.

But then again, it’s not their fault either. It’s the rest of the world that probably needs to get clean.