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"Do I really wanna know why Egon's boxers are in the oven?" said Peter.
Ray and Slimer exchanged a guilty glance. Winston unfolded his arms and shrugged. "You get to explain this one, Ray. I'm not touching it with a ten-foot pole."
"The explanation or the boxers?" asked Peter. He sidled across the kitchen. Yup, the oven was on, although it was on the plate-warmer setting. At least that probably meant the slow-roasted underwear wasn't intended for dinner.
"I was just trying to get a head start on the laundry," Ray moaned pitifully.
Peter glanced back. "Maybe you'd better start at the beginning, Tex."
---
The extra-large-drum washer in the basement had been designed to handle the sorts of laundry problems the Ghostbusters encountered on a regular basis - marshmallow, mud, road grime, but especially ectoplasm, often in large quantities. Winston had helped with the assembly, but the design was Ray's.
Ectoplasm was a particular problem because it wasn't matter, in the normal sense of the word - or, rather, it was ethereal rather than material. It went through a process, once it got on a uniform (or anything else), of drying out, crumbling and flaking, and then sublimating - except that "drying" and "sublimating" described specific chemical processes, as Egon insisted on pointing out frequently, and what the ectoplasm was doing resembled both processes only superficially. It didn't contain water to begin with; what looked like drying out really represented a phase change, from semi-liquid to solid, and what looked like sublimation - which really would have been a phase change - was actually closer to radioactive decay, except that the particles emitted were electroetheric and thus harmless. (Unless raising the local PKE potential field didn't count as "harmless," which Peter was still withholding judgement on.)
As a laundry problem, this essentially boiled down to ectoplasm not being particularly water-soluble, even in its dried form. What they had found usually worked best was to either get an ectoplasm-soaked item into the laundry immediately, or wait until all the ectoplasm on the article of clothing had gotten to the crumbly stage, as at either point the combination of a strong detergent and vigorous agitation could remove the very wet or very dry ectoplasm from the material. In the rather thick, sticky stage in between, it might well take two or three washings to remove all the slime.
The pile of slimed uniforms downstairs varied in size from week to week, depending on how busy they were and how rambunctious the goopers got. That week, there had been three - two of Peter's and one of Ray's - along with several other uniforms from all of them that were simply stained or sweaty. That morning, Ray had checked the gooped ones and decided that they were dry enough to wash, and scooped them into the washing machine, along with the rest of the uniforms. Upon discovering that there was still a small amount of space at the top of the machine, and not wanting to do a partial load, he had added half a basket of their regular laundry, consisting mostly of socks and underwear.
He had then closed the machine and started it, forgetting the all-important step of adding detergent.
The trouble had started about forty minutes later.
---
Ray bounced down the basement stairs, a full basket of laundry perched on one shoulder. It wasn't his favorite chore, but it sure beat grocery shopping and cleaning the kitchen. He set the basket down next to the washer and checked to make sure the previous load was done; yup, the dial had ticked all the way around. He opened the dryer door wide, cleaned the lint filter (Peter never remembered), and then lifted the lid on the washer.
A damp sock poked him in the nose.
Ray jerked back, dropping the lid. "What the heck?"
Nothing moved for a moment. Cautiously, Ray raised the washer's hatch a second time.
Immediately, a flurry of white and blue leaped out of the drum past him. Ray made a wild grab and found himself with a double handful of white tube socks, wriggling like grubs under an overturned rock. He shoved them back into the washer and whirled around, watching with a slow sinking sensation in his stomach as a squadron of wet laundry galloped up the stairs.
---
Janine flipped through the pages of a fashion magazine. Today was slow - she'd fielded a grand total of three calls since coming in. Two were requests for interviews, one from a tabloid wanting to talk to Ray (she'd taken a message for him) and one from a college newspaper asking for Egon (he'd agreed, which was why he wasn't in the firehouse at the moment). The third one had been, she'd determined pretty quickly, a squeaky-door call - someone hearing rats in the attic and thinking they were ghosts. She'd handed that one off to Peter, who had recommended they get a regular exterminator and then call them back if the problem persisted.
This year's runway shows, unfortunately, weren't turning out to be much more interesting. High collars, really? On summer outfits? She turned another page. And such dull colors, too. Whatever happened to summer brights and whites?
A quiet swish next to her desk caught her attention; she looked over, then sat up straight as half a dozen white socks marched two abreast from the basement stairs, past Peter's desk and hers, around the reception area, and into the downstairs restroom.
A few seconds after they'd disappeared, Ray came charging up the stairs, clutching a canvas laundry bag. It was wriggling slightly. "Janine, have you seen, um . . . "
"Six soccer socks?" she asked. Ray nodded; she pointed at the bathroom. He pressed his lips together in a hard line and crept up on the door. She leaned over, craning her neck to see, as he steeled himself, then flung the door open and pounced.
A pair of boxer shorts scampered past; she almost missed it. They darted up the stairs. They must be Egon's, or maybe Peter's, she figured; the waistband was too small for them to be Winston's or Ray's.
"Haha! Gotcha!" Ray emerged from the bathroom, face reddened but triumphant; the laundry bag bulged and writhed. "Janine, if you see any more - "
Wordlessly, she pointed up the stairs. His face fell. "Darn. One got away from me, huh?"
"No, this was underwear this time," she stated mildly. Ray blushed and thundered up the stairs after the rogue unmentionables.
---
"You sure this is the last one?" Winston grumbled.
"Positive." Ray glanced down at the PKE meter he'd finally thought to get out. "All the socks are either back in the washer or in the bag."
"So why didn't any of the uniforms decide to go for a walk, or any of the rest of our drawers?" Winston circled around the living room. The boxers had so far managed to elude all their attempts at capturing them; Winston was about ready to go get a thrower and fry the suckers, and just buy Egon a new pair later, but Ray looked like he was about to die of embarrassment when he suggested it.
"I'm not completely sure," Ray admitted, "But my current theory is that when I, uh, washed the ectoplasm-soaked uniforms without enough detergent, the agitation was sufficient to knock the slime loose, and it absorbed enough water to return it to a semi-liquid state. In that form, it attached itself to the clothes that had the highest content of absorptive fiber, mostly cotton." He signaled to Winston, and the two of them jumped out, a net stretched between them; they crashed to the floor as the boxers flattened and slipped away, into the kitchen.
Winston rubbed at his knees. "Our uniforms are a blend of cotton and polyester for strength, right?"
"And some fire-retardant fibers, and a few things Egon and I asked for, for other safety reasons." Ray brushed off his rump. "And most of our boxers are also a poly-cotton blend, although higher on the cotton than the uniforms are. But Egon's are the 100% Egyptian cotton ones his mom keeps sending him."
"And all the gym-type socks would be all-cotton, too." Winston pulled himself upright against the arm of the sofa. "Okay. But why were they easier to catch?"
"The terrycloth also holds water better, so they're damper and slower. I think." Ray furrowed his brow in concentration. "Okay. They're in the kitchen. I think we have them cornered - "
"Aaaaaahh!" yowled Slimer, careening out of the dining area. "Undewrweywre mowving by itfelf!"
"It got dosed with a little extra ectoplasm, Slimer," Ray reassured him. "It's harmless. We're just trying to catch it."
"Oh." Slimer wrung his hands. "Catch the undewrweywre?"
"Yeah." Ray and Winston crept to the kitchen door. The boxers had jumped up on the table, somehow; Ray pointed to Winston - you go left, I'll go right.
From opposite sides of the table, they turned, ready to tackle the wayward undergarments. Ray dashed forwards a split-second before Winston did; the boxers jumped, out of Ray's grip, out of Winston's, and were breaking for the door again -
"Yaaaah!" Slimer dove from the doorway, barreling full-tilt into the boxers and then into Ray; they went over in a shower of green slime, along with one of the kitchen chairs, as Winston just barely managed not to topple over with them.
---
Peter peered through the oven door. "So why are these getting baked, when you thought it was safe to just run the socks back through the washer - with the detergent this time?"
"It got double-charged with ectoplasm when Slimer hit it," Ray explained, his face still red. "It would either have to go in a load by itself, or it needed to dry out first."
"You guys keep telling me it's not really drying, though," Peter said, standing back up and shaking his head.
"It isn't, but heat - especially dry heat - still speeds up the process." Ray fidgeted. "It stopped trying to get out half an hour ago. I figure they'll be ready to come out in about another twenty minutes."
"You could try ironing them," Peter mused. "Tell you what, I'll go down and check on the sock load, make sure that they're back to not standing by themselves."
"I'll go with you," offered Winston quickly. Peter shot him a sympathetic look as they headed downstairs. The front door's bell rang as they made it to the basement; Winston pressed one hand to his mouth and suppressed a snicker.
Peter approached the washing machine carefully, tapping the side. "Don't hear anything." He opened the lid. "Looks A-OK in here. No sock squadrons planning the Great Escape."
"Good." Winston opened the dryer. "Let's finish that load off."
They were creeping back up the stairs when they saw Janine standing at the base of the firepole, her ear turned upwards. Tiptoeing over to join her, they heard, quite clearly, Egon's query: "Ray, why is a pair of my underwear in the oven?"
"It's a long story," Ray groaned, as the three of them collapsed in helpless laughter.