(Every so often, I have "clever monkey" moments. These are little creative flashes, insight or non-linear solutions to problems. They make me think I might, in fact, be half as clever as people seem to think I am. Which would make me twice as clever as I usually feel.)

For instance, the other evening, I wanted to wash the pillow slips for my feather pillows. You know those little zipper thingies you put around a feather pillow, to contain the feathers that sneak out? Those things.

This process is akin to cracking open a nuclear containment vessel, but instead of blue light that gives you cancer, you get a cloud of loose little feathers that stick to everything and look silly. And, if you simply wash the cover with feathers in it, they stick to the inside of your washing machine and show up on your clothes for weeks to come.

In the past, my solution to this has been to put on a nice linen shirt, go outside, and flail the feathery pillow slip around. Then, I carry out the pillow and whack it around for a bit. There were little white drifts in my back yard last time, in California, in August. And i still had the damned things in my hair for days.

What I really wanted was a second container for this. I consider doing all that inside a trash bag, or a grocery bag. Maybe I could tie the bag up, all puffy, and then beat it around for a bit. All good ideas, but there's still the problem of opening the bag up. What you need is a filter on the bag as you open it up and the air comes out.

Or, you can just stick the whole assembly in the dryer, open it up, and extract in there. Then, close the dryer, and run air through it for a little while. Et voila! All the feathers are handily sequestered in your standard filter, the pillows are delightfully fluffed, and the slip are wonderfully, well, de-fluffed.