Up to her arms in soapy water, Murriel Page had no way to answer the ringing doorbell. "Hold on a cotton-pickin' minute, would you?" she yelled as loudly as she could, hoping that whoever was at the door would be able to hear her. It seemed to work.

As soon as she was finished with the load in the sink, she dried herself off and went to the door, automatically casting her gaze downward. At six feet and two inches, she tended to end up staring over people's heads when she looked straight ahead. This time was no exception, although she wasn't quite sure if she could believe the evidence of her eyes or not.

"Well, what are you standing there for? Either let me in or tell me to rack off. It's too damn hot for this kind of nonsense," Michele Timms said heatedly. Before Murriel could say a word, Michele had pushed past her into the small apartment, lugging a large sack behind her that had a distinctive, unpleasant, and familiar smell. "Annie told me you'd been taking in wash," she explained, invoking Murriel's Australian teammate Annie Burgess.

"Oh, that's it. My humiliation is now complete," Murriel moaned, falling on a chair. Unfortunately, to make things even worse, the chair wasn't prepared to be fallen on; Murriel ended up going down much further than she had anticipated. "No, I'm sorry. Now my humiliation is complete. Stick a fork in me; my reputation is done for."

Michele gave her a hand up and said, "Don't worry about it, your secret is safe with me. Do you give in-league discounts?"

"Timmsy, I can't afford to give discounts. Do I want to know what you have for me?"

It was Michele's turn to look embarrassed. "Well… you know just how bad things have been for the league. They've been worse for the Mercury. I haven't even had any moolah to buy new socks, and I still wear a different pair for each game. So I'm keeping one from each set and washing the other. It's about four hundred pair, so that's about four hundred socks to make about two hundred new pair, which should get me through for a long time."

Murriel would have taken a deep breath were it not for the stench of old socks. "Jesus, Michele, how long have you had these?"

"Some of them I don't even know," Michele answered gravely. "I think some are from my WNBL days back home. Some are from Germany, I know that much-"

"'Scuse me," Murriel interrupted. "I have to use the bathroom." She ran to the bathroom, closed the door, and proceeded to throw up everything she had eaten in the past twenty-four hours. Unwashed socks that were half her age and had been festering in storage- Murriel wondered just what she had done to deserve this horrible fate. But she needed the money, and so she knew that despite the nausea it induced in her, she would end up washing Michele's ancient and disgusting socks.

"Are you all right?" Michele asked once Murriel returned from her prayer at the porcelain shrine.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm good. Ten dollars for the load, and I'll have them ready for you before you leave town. And if I don't come out alive, the money goes into the team funds in my name. Sheesh, Michele, these things smell to high heaven."

"Ten dollars is a little steep," Michele said hesitantly. Before she could dither any more, Murriel opened the bag and shoved one of the socks under her nose. Michele gasped as the odor hit her and said in a raspy, constricted voice, "You win, Murriel. Take the socks, please take the socks."

Murriel took the socks and prepared herself for a very long session in the bathroom sink.