Iron Man

Yesterday I found myself in a fairly frantic situation. I unexpectedly needed to wear a suit to something a couple hours later in the day, but my dress shirts were all badly wrinkled. I tried the old "pulling the shirt taut to try to unwrinkle it" and was disappointed to see that it had little effect. So I took a deep breath-- I knew what I had to do.

I walked over to the closet and took out the ironing board and the iron. I had never ironed anything before, partially because I've never especially cared about wearing wrinkled clothes and partially because I don't know how.

I held the iron up and looked at it-- no doubt a confusing device. I vaguely remembered that water was involved in the ironing process. I searched around for a place to put water and found a little hole in the handle, and filled it. Then I plugged it in, and it was at that moment that the iron became a very mean and scary device.

During the next 30 minutes:

-I burned myself at least four times
-I ironed as many sharp wrinkles into the shirt as I ironed wrinkles out of it
-The iron fell off the ironing board more than once, which is a lot more upsetting than it sounds
-I burned myself more
-I partially melted a button
-I failed to figure out how the hell to iron a sleeve without ironing wrinkles into the other side
-I cursed mightily
-I may have shed a tear or two

When I finished, I put the iron away, burning myself one last time for good measure. Then I couldn't figure out how to close the legs of the ironing board. After throwing the board across the room, I held up the shirt. Other than a few newly ironed creases and multiple spots of water, it looked pretty good.

"I'll be damned," I thought. "I'll be damned."