A Badge Magic farce, a monologue.

Those who are familiar with Badge Magic are probably saying "oh no" based on that subject line. For those who are not: it is an adhesive used to attach Scout emblems and patches to uniform shirts. It's also designed to be fully removeable, leaving the shirt and patches reusable; as such, it's not as strong as sewing them on or using an iron on or fusing item, but it's much more convenient if your Scout outgrows the shirt but still needs those patches. And of course, it has its own arcane rules. (It's also more convenient because you can use it without any special tools but a pair of scissors, although access to a dryer is preferred - it heat-sets in the dryer, which is ideal, but it's pretty good at what it does even before that step.)

So, yesterday, I did a load of kids' laundry. I knew that Andrew's class-A Cub Scout shirt was in there, but I forgot, and just tossed it in the washer. Ooops. You should wash these things inside-out (even if you sew on the badges, it's probably a good idea; if you use Badge Magic you definitely should) so all the edges of all those patches don't catch on things and get pulled away.

I kind of got lucky - I spotted it post-wash and fixed it before the dryer, so at least they didn't continue to get pried off, and also none of them came all the way off (although one of the little segments came close).

So I dried it and figured that today I would try to reattach all the loose bits with more Badge Magic. ( If you know badge magic, you can guess the alternative and the details. If you don't, they're here, but probably still boring. )

Laura's monologue this morning:

• I hope Badge Magic can save me.
• Oh, this is going to be tedious.
• There, got one on! This is going to work. I love Badge Magic. Of course, that was one of the two easy ones because it peeled so far back, but still, this is going to work.
• Ugh, how big a piece do I need here?
• I hate Badge Magic. No, get OFF my FINGERS.
• There. Try again. Oh, that worked. Fiddly, but it worked. I love Badge Magic.
• This segment almost came off. I'll just take it off, rough-clean the area without solvent, and put it back on.
• Why could it not have been the Raingutter Regatta segment that came off? I wanted to replace that one with the other segment for that with the other color set, anyway.
• Oh, I hate Badge Magic. Good thing I'm not going to put my fingers in the dryer, but I'd like the use of my thumb back.
• Um, no, no, no. No gluing the scissors shut.
• Arrrgh, what was this pre-attached badge attached with? Well, it wasn't sewn and all the others were, so I'm hoping it was Badge Magic. Even if it wasn't, it should still work to do it now.
• Hey, it worked! Oh, argh, get OFF my FINGERS you stuff. There.

I showed Scott the results pre-heat-set and he agreed they looked good. Into the dryer for 10 minutes to heat-set it (an optional but highly recommended step) and lay it flat to settle after. I think it's all back to normal, and if not, I'll just have to tweak a few corners. Which is, um, when I'm most likely to temporarily stick my fingers together. At least it isn't superglue.

Given all this, I figure that next month Andrew will have a sudden growth spurt and outgrow the shirt, because that is just my luck. :P