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Show ABOVE THE HULLABALOO pHE BATTLE LINE Is congested with heavy ordnance socks, bras, shorts, and unmentionables. The line Is short, but it is the scene of more military ritual than most battlefields. You might call this narrow front of strategy just a clothesline, hotly contested by my wife and the lady in the upstairs apartment, but the back fence field marshals call it No Man's Land. One washday, the enemy arrived "fustest with the mostest," forcing my wife to retreat with oar wet wash. Then my wife retaliated with like onslaught the next Monday. Mon-day. Each Monday, one of the generals manned battle stations a little earlier. Soon my commander had me on dawn patrol (or nightshirt night-shirt reconnaissance) looking for the enemy's approach. When either woman pinned an item on the line first, she won the fray. They'd make a dash with heavy wash baskets, and one would withdraw when the other had slapped slap-ped a wet sock on the line. Why all the maneuvering with heavy artillery, I asked, when a light foray would do? I pinned a hanky on the line Sunday night and it repelled re-pelled the enemy's dawn attack. But the enemy's hubby is a belter diplomat. He replaced my piece dence-of-the - Sunday - night hanky with a precedence sytem (uashtub protocol) in which diapers preceded hankies because "baby is crying jot dry pants"; shorts preceded diapers lor no practical reason; unmentionables unmention-ables preceded shorts. Continually, our wash was tossed on the ground as we were outflanked by pink panties with precedence. The enemy's hubby and I observe diplomatic amenities. We converse amiably,' never mentioning wel underwear, 'though it's continually on our chests. Now he's evolved a precedent in color in which, flagrant hues supercede mild ones, because, h says, the bright tints fade unlesi dried at once. His wife threw mj white shirt oft the line last weei and victoriously flew his yellow on. in its place. But my wife, I so ashamed to admit, held the line thi. week by unfurling my orangt shorts. Next week, the criterion will be size in place of color (large garments shrink if not dried to mediately, he says), and my me dium underwear will become ob-solute-militiarily. fiw1"' - r ; " "' '' I M- j "' .4-1 : k. 7.' i : 'I v ' ' t .4- &u Wte,.. ... " Jean Simmons and I her -toy ' poodle, Beth, take a look at f0. from a hotel balcony MJ mons will make r A mer screen debut as an RKO S GeoS Bernard .thaw's comedyf c?assif,e "Androcles and the Lion." |