The epiphany splatted me upside the head at the laundromat.

(Being splatted by an epiphany is something like being socked by a fit, but without the frustration of being swamped by a fitted sheet.)

I had just flipped open the washing machine lid to discover “snow” splattered throughout my freshly laundered dress shirts and slacks.

That’s when I realized a Great Truth: When you live alone and someone leaves a tissue in their pocket, and the tissue shreds like confetti in the washing machine, the guilty party is fingered immediately, if not sooner.

I groaned at the revelation, partly because of the mess, but mostly because there were no other suspects but me for the crime.

When my wife was still alive and found scraps of Kleenex mingled among the socks, there was the possibility the tissue came from one of her pockets.

She never believed that for a second.

But I clung to the possibility like… well, like shreds of wet tissue plastered all over freshly laundered blue jeans.

There are roughly 237 billion reasons why I miss my wife, and this is one of them: the lack of other people to blame when something goes wrong.

I mostly miss her laughter, her love, her care and her compassion, but I also miss not having to take the blame for all of my mistakes.

On the plus side, whatever way I fold the towels now IS the correct way. And wadding fitted sheets into a ball and jamming them onto the closet shelf IS the accepted method of putting away laundry. (In truth, wadding up fitted sheets has ALWAYS been the correct way to fold the blasted things.)

These things were not permissible when I lived with adult supervision.

Terry demonstrated folding fitted sheets multiple times, and walked me through it on a few occasions.

I almost received a passing grade from my beautiful teacher. But while I shall never forget her, I can’t remember much from her sheet-folding instructions.

Some lessons did take, sometimes to my dismay.

Whenever we were going on a trip, no matter how late we were setting out, Terry always had to do dishes first.

“Leave them,” I barked. “They’ll still be here when we get back.”

“Not likely,” she said. “In a day or two, fuzzy gunk will begin growing on them. In another couple days, the fuzz will grow arms and legs. The dishes will crawl out of the sink and run all over the house.

“Before a week’s gone by, the mold will evolve into a brain. The dishes will change the locks and order tons of stuff we don’t need on Amazon.

“Do you want that? Do you want to be locked out of your own house and bankrupt by remnants of beef stroganoff and cheesy spinach?”

I did not know dirty dishes were capable of intelligent life, but this explains a lot about the weird things that happened in the dorm room at college.

I went on a five-day trip out of state. The last thing I did before I left was wash the dishes. Terry’s explanation sounded more like a plot from a bad 1950s monster movie, but why take chances.

On the other hand, I left my socks and underwear on the bedroom floor so that I would know right where they were when I needed them.

Putting them either in laundry baskets for dresser drawers just gets confusing. You know how guys can’t see the ketchup in the refrigerator? I at least know that it’s got to be in the fridge, whereas with my socks, I may not remember which basket or set of drawers they last crawled into. Leaving laundry on the floor eliminates that annoyance.

This simple life hack was not possible when Terry was alive. Like leaving the house before dishes were washed, clothing was not to be scattered on the floor no matter how much easier it made finding my things.

But beyond having another suspect handy, I’d be glad to take another crack at learning how to fold fitted sheets to have my sweetie back. It’s awfully lonely doing dishes by myself.

For more tips on living alone, check in with Burt at burton.w.cole@gmail or on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook.