Determined Detergent (DD)

"We never doubted you, D."

"Of course you did," D said, and sweeping the crowd with his gaze, "You all did."

The hand sanitizers, soaps, disinfectants, detergents, and fabric softeners looked down, admitting their doubts.

"But that was before," said the elderly and motherly fabric softener. "Until you came, no other detergent was able to remove so many kinds of stains in so little time while barely wearing out the fabric." At that, D beamed, proudly standing erect and tall, as though winds were blowing through his hair, an unseen cape waving like a triumphant flag. And he knew that this was how he seemed to them at this moment. A hero.

"The master will stop having those fits," said the young soap. "He will stop throwing us into the garbage, as hardly used failures, even though some of us were innocent and had nothing to do with cleaning clothes."

"The master is strict, her standards high, her morals unforgiving," said the washing machine behind the crowd. The machine winked at D and opened up his dryer. The stain-free clothes were now dry, and the master will come for them soon.

"Focus, relentless focus and sorting out and crushing those oppressive stains, that is the key, remember that," D said in a booming voice. The laundry room, whose white-tiled floor stretches into the bathroom and kitchen, were quiet. D had them by the edge of his tongue. He had finally proven himself.

"What should we call you, stranger? I mean other than the "D" on your packaging?" asked the hand sanitizer.

"D is fine. What's in a name anyway?"

"Nothing," the fabric softener said, "and everything. A name to us like yours is symbol, pride, hope, a reason to go on."

"Maybe we should give him a name, since he doesn't have a clue," the disinfectant said.

"I have an idea," said the washing machine, and when he said the name he had in mind, D and everyone else beamed. It was fitting.

Later, the master walked into the laundry room to get her clothes from the drier. She noticed something different about the detergent's packaging.

"Funny, this wasn't here this morning," she said.

On the package's front pronounced the laundry room's pride: DD.

"That's Determined Detergent to you," said the young soap. The washing machine glared at the soap. The master might hear her. Better the master figure it out on her own.