SOUTHSHORE SENTINEL - METRO December 24, 1976

By Chauncey Tide

Packages began arriving in Southshore three weeks before Christmas. The boxes were uniform. The return address listed a company in Northern California. Several residents mentioned receiving them on the same day.

Inside each box: fifty feet of cotton rope, two metal pulleys, and assembly instructions printed on card stock. The instructions were clear. They suggested mounting the pulleys at opposing points and running the rope between them. A diagram showed clothing suspended from the line.

One resident said she opened the package in her kitchen. She read the instructions twice. She said it took a moment to understand what she was looking at. When asked what she had ordered, she said it was advertised as a solar-powered clothes dryer. The ad had appeared in a magazine. It cost forty-nine dollars and ninety-five cents.

Another resident said he had ordered the same product. He thought it would use a solar panel. The panel would generate electricity. The electricity would power a motor. He said this seemed reasonable given the price. When the rope arrived, he checked the box again to see if he had missed something. He had not.

A neighbor said she received one too. She said she had been excited. Her current dryer used a lot of electricity. She thought the solar model would save money. She hung the rope between two trees in her yard. She said it worked, technically. Clothes dried when the sun was out.

Throughout the neighborhood, similar conversations occurred. People compared their orders. The boxes were identical. The rope was good quality. No one had received anything resembling a mechanical dryer. Several residents said they initially thought there had been a shipping error. They expected a correction. None arrived.

One man said he called the company. The line was disconnected. He wrote a letter. It was not returned, but no reply came. He said he eventually stopped checking the mail. He kept the rope. His wife used it in the spring.

At a local hardware store, a clerk said several customers had come in asking about solar dryers. They wanted to know if the store sold them. The clerk said he explained that clothes dried on a line using solar energy. The customers said they understood. They had just received one by mail. The clerk said this happened enough that he stopped being surprised.

A woman said she gave hers to a friend as a Christmas gift. She wrapped it carefully. She included the instructions. Her friend opened it at a party. Everyone laughed. The woman said it seemed better than explaining she had been fooled. Her friend still uses the rope. She said it holds up well.

By late December, most residents who had ordered the dryer understood what had occurred. The advertisement had not lied. A clothesline does use solar energy. It dries clothes. It costs less to operate than an electric model. The description was accurate in a way that made accuracy beside the point.

No one in Southshore reported the company to authorities. Several residents said they considered it. One man said he decided against it because he wasn't sure what law had been broken. Another said the rope worked better than expected. A third said it felt like the kind of mistake you absorbed quietly.

A few residents kept their clotheslines installed. One woman said hers stayed up through the spring. She used it when the weather was good. She said it saved electricity. She said this without irony.

When asked whether she felt deceived, she thought about it. "I got what was advertised," she said. "I just didn't get what I thought was being advertised."

The company continued to operate through the following year. Advertisements appeared in other publications. The return address changed periodically. Complaints accumulated slowly. By the time postal inspectors began investigating, the company had moved on.

In Southshore, the clotheslines remained. Some were taken down. Others stayed. One man said his was still up because removing it seemed like more work than leaving it. He said this was true of most things that arrived unexpectedly.

On Christmas Eve, a resident was seen hanging lights from the line in his yard. When asked if it was the solar dryer, he said it was. He said it had turned out to be multi-purpose. He said this was more than he could say for most of what he ordered.