Step 1. Make the stain. This part is simple! Do something wrong. Be clumsy or just plain stupid. Spill a glass of red wine, cry hysterically with cheap mascara on, cook marinara sauce without an apron on, leave your tampon in for too long, drink to the point that you get sick, and then don’t make it to a trash can in time.
Step 2. Now that you’ve successfully created your stain, you’ll need to get mad at yourself. Shout something, FUCK!! How could you be so goddamn stupid?! You imbecile! That was your favorite dress! You spent much too much goddamn money on it to just toss it in the washer and hope for the best! It’s ruined because you were a sloppy dumbass.
Step 3. Evaluate the damage. Choose your product. Will you go with a common household item, or does the material of the dress call for that heavy-duty shit? Decide on seltzer. The dress is delicate, and you don’t want to stain it with stain remover. You never drink seltzer anyway, and you only keep it in the house for when your mother-in-law decides to randomly pop in with her suitcase ready for a long weekend visit. She bitches that your tap water tastes like mud, so you started with water bottles. Then she bitched that you were ruining the environment with your non-biodegradable bottles. The lecture about your mud water will almost always progress into a lecture about A. why the hell I haven’t put my uterus to good use housing her grandbabies yet or B. how you better not be after her son's money, and she’ll be slightly more polite than that, maybe, but she’ll always scold your husband for the fact that he didn’t get a prenuptial agreement when he married the ditsy gold-digging whore.
Step 4. Pour the seltzer on the stain. Watch the bubbles crash into the fabric as they begin to form their own little puddle that holds above the fabric. In the puddle, the bubble hit the fabric and began to rise. You’re not sure because you were only a philosophy major in college, but you think that the bubbles pick up the stain with it. Let that sit for a couple of minutes. Give yourself a chance to sit, too.
Step 5. Run hot water directly over the stain. Not cold, not room temperature, not warm. Scolding hot. Let the water burn your hands while you hold your dress there. Your nimble fingers are always freezing; it’s nice to feel a temperature other than the Arctic, even if it is the other end of extremes. Stare out the window in front of the sink and contemplate how the fuck your life got to this point. Barren, unemployed, and unhappy. There will be so much to contemplate that you’ll lose track of time and feelings. The timer on the oven goes off, and you snap back to reality. Your hands are bright red, and they burn. The skin on your knuckles will start to peel, but you can just bandage them. It’s no bother.
Step 6. Look at the tag of the dress for cleaning instructions. You’re not sure what temperature water to put the washer on when you run it. Find out that it’s dry clean only. Roll the dress up into a ball and hurl it across the living room. Drop to the floor. Bury your face into your knees. Feel your upper thighs developing rug burn as your shaking body rubs against the Persian carpet your dead aunt gave you in her will. Cry. Keep crying. Let your face feel the sting of salty tears. Let the burning sensation in your eyes echo that in your hands.
Step 7. Let your breathing slow. Get your shit together. Wipe your eyes. Notice the makeup that’s now staining the inside of your index finger. Look to your knees, where you had just laid your head to cry. Notice the arch of wet mascara that has found a home on the bottom hem of your skirt.
Step 8. Repeat.
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