Dear mrsnull,
I can't guarantee that this method will work for catsup, but it seems to work great for poop stains!
But which do you think is more likely to be difficult to get out?
Right, I would vote that poop is more difficult, too.
Or its just that we humans sometimes have an unexplainable revulsion to feces.
Okay, now that I think about it, maybe it's not completely unexplainable.
Although.. I know that coffee is actually more difficult than poop, as evidenced by my failed attempts to get coffee out of the "perfect" white shirt a friend gave me.
"Why did you allow the stain to set, Linna?", you might ask me.
Well, I was sitting in bed reading, of course.
And drinking a cup of coffee!
So naturally, I accidentally spilled some coffee on myself.
And the book was good, or I was feeling tired, so I just sat there and looked at the stain soaking into my shirt...
...thinking, "I don't want to get up. World, why do you do these things to me?"
(Never-mind that I'd done it to myself, of course)
Or maybe you weren't interested in my story so much as in getting a solution to your problem... ahem, well... solutions to the problem.
But you weren't bored by my story at ALL, were you?
So, this is the trick I learned from my awesome mother-in-law: (also named Julie!)
"Old-school" yellow laundry soap WORKS.
This stuff, on this ABC's thread: kevinswatch.ihugny.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=876750#876750
She got awful berry stains out of a favorite shirt of mine, and that was what interested me in this.
You soak something ahead of time, scrub a bit with fingers/nails, and watch the stain fade.
Then there's the trick I learned from my awesome college roommate before that, which is that SHOUT gel is useful and awesome in its own special way.
This stuff.. I put a pic of it on the "Do you think we have questions?" thread: kevinswatch.ihugny.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=876753#876753
And from the website that I got this image from, I'm also copying the instructional text:
Procure a bottle of liquid shout gel from your grocery store.
Do not use laundry or dish detergent or you will never get all the bubbles out of the engine.
You can determine if that is applicable to your situation, though.
Oh hey, I just realized my story about spilling coffee on my white shirt kind of has relevance here.
Because you can gauge your "laziness factor" compared to me.
See, I put things off sometimes.
And I'd read the instructions on the bottle of SHOUT, and so I knew that I could treat a piece of clothing with SHOUT days, and then just stick it in the laundry for days before washing it.
But you know how people say "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing"?
Yeah.
I guess it is!
There were some words AFTER that which said NOT to pre-treat clothing of certain colors (grays? beige? light colors? and neons? ...I think) ahead of washing!
Yeah, it sort of bleached a spot into a gray pair of slacks, I think.
How was I supposed to know to keep reading? Pfft.
Hmm, that response of mine was a little long.
I guess I could have written it like this:
1. Soak the affected area.
2. Scrub with fels-naptha or a similar block of yellow laundry soap.
(to be found at your local grocery store or Wal-Mart, probably.)
3. The intensity of the stain should have faded by now.
4. Treat with SHOUT Gel... scrubbing in with the little brush thing it has.
5. Throw it in the laundry.
Well, that took me so long you've probably got the stain out by now, huh?
Hopefully I helped promote your other goals involving your hubby's WGD acquisition, at least.
Wishing you the best as you care for your hubby!
Linna, the narcissistic Sheep-substitute
