No. 5 - Dry Cleaning Tags

As I was getting ready for work this morning, I removed the little dry cleaning tag from my freshly-laundered shirt and threw it in the garbage can.

My four-year old son: Dad, what's that?

Me: I don't know but the dry cleaner always puts them on my shirts and I always have to remove them.

My wife gave me the funny eyes like I'm a wee bit crazy.

She: You don't know what they're for?

Me: No. What?

She: They're used to identify your shirts from everyone else's when the shirts get thrown all together in the washing machine.

Me (after digging the little itty bitty tag out of the garbage can and seeing a four-digit number printed on the tag): Oh. That makes sense.

While the above was not a shocking surprise to me - it seemed all very logical - I wonder if I already knew what dry cleaning tags were used for and forgot it many years ago since it's a very insignificant matter in my grand scheme of things. I drop the clothes off. I pick them up. It works. I don't question how it works. Unless it stops working someday.

How many things in life do we not pay attention to because they seem insignificant? They work. Until they don't work. And then we question why.