250823 Have you ever…

Have you ever washed your clothing and found out that you had also washed a stick of gum? Gum, in case you don’t already know doesn’t wash well.

I hate to admit it but I did leave a stick of gum in my pants and I made the following efforts to get it out, with success, I might add.

That time I used a heavy concentration of straight stain remover mixed with undiluted laundry soap. That did the trick on a pair of jean pants.

However, this time the gum was stuck on a nice knit shirt. I tried the stain remover, straight soap, and nothing touched it.  A quick check on the Internet showed that I was not the only numbskull to wash gum in with clothing.

The first thing I tried was 100% acetone which has been, next to gasoline, my go to cleaner. This didn’t even touch it.

The first suggestion I followed was to put it in the freezer with the possible outcome of being able to chip the gum away. That was a harebrained idea that I will never ever follow again.

Next, my future daughter-in-law suggested rubbing peanut butter on it. Another stupid idea that I will never try again.

Then I used boiling vinegar, almost a full gallon. That stuff stinks when it boils. I put soaked the shirt in that for 3 to 4 minutes. If you try this method be really careful that you don’t burn your fingers with the boiling vinegar. After it soaks 3-5 minutes you blot the gum off with a paper towel. That sort of worked, but it still left a lot of gum on the shirt.

I tried baking soda laundry detergent with a slight amount of scrubbing and that also did not work.

Finally, at the suggestion of a fine video put up by an unknown person on the Internet, I used WD-40,

I have used a WD-40 in the past to clean things up, but for some reason, it never occurred to me to try it gum.

A word of caution here, if you spray your garment on the kitchen table with WD-40 the absolute first person to notice the overspray on the table, that she has just wiped down, is going to be your wife. But then a dose of Clorox bleach solves that problem.

Now back to the final outcome of WD-40.

It worked like a charm. There is no noticeable gum left on that shirt.