Laundry – A Most Irksome Household Chore!
Whoooboy! You know you have left the laundry too long when you’ve been wearing pajama pants around the house for two days and 
your hubby is down to his last pair if skivvies, the ones with Santa skiing on them which he refuses to wear anytime other than Christmas. A request has been made for clean socks and underwear so I must drag my ass out of the writing cave and get at it, even though I have caught the dreaded man-flu and feel like hammered shit.
Thanks be to God that I don’t have to go down to the river and beat the clothes clean with a stick! Being that we live on the 47th parallel, I would probably have to beat a hole through the ice still to get to running water, despite the fact that it’s APRIL 26TH!!! Thankfully, I don’t have to hang out the wash to dry and have it freeze solid on the line, either. So what is it about laundry that is such a pain, even with the convenience of modern day appliances?
I think that a degree course could be offered in the laundry arts. The first thing to know is that symbols on clothing tags have meaning. I have learned to avoid buying any items that require hand washing, washing in any temperature other than warm, and anything that has to be laid flat to dry. I figure, in this day and age, why would you buy clothing items that can’t be fired into an automatic washer and dryer? My daughter has yet to acquire this wisdom, and therefore does her own laundry. To avoid pink dress shirts and gray underwear, all of my stuff gets sorted by colors, blacks and whites. Towels don’t have to abide by the color rule because they have been washed that often, there’s no dye left in them to run. Do you get my drift about how titchy a task this laundry business can be? I’m not even going to get into the different types of laundry detergent and fabric softeners that’s out there, and how to know how much to use. Then there’s stain removers and laundry brighteners, and a plethora of helpful handy products to make your clean clothes smell clean!
Then there’s the time issue. Wheras with the old school washer-spin-dryers or even the old wringer washers, a load of clothes would take 15 minutes max to cycle, the modern machines take about an hour, by the time they soak, pre-wash, wash, rinse, water soften, and rinse, then to dry a load, you’re looking at anywhere from a half hour to 45-50 minutes. Then there is the process of folding, or hanging the clean clothes up in your closet. I am a big advocate of catching the clothes at the end of the drying cycle to avoid IRONING!!! UGH!!. Thank the Gods for non wrinkle and perma press fabrics. Either way, this laundry mountain I’m looking at is gonna take all weekend to scale.
My husband, in his wisdom, says, “Why don’t you do a little laundry each day, then you don’t end up with a big old pile at the end of the week.” To which I reply, “Why don’t you do any at all?” Which does not bode well for marital harmony. The problem is while laundry is a necessary evil, it is BORING AS HELL, and if you hope to tempt me out of the writing cave to do it, then I expect to be rewarded with chocolate or wine, or take-out for dinner!
I always wondered if owning your own laundry equipment was a better option than taking the whole mess out to a laundromat and loading up seven machines at the one time. Brilliant! Unfortunately my washer broke down one weekend and I had to put the theory to the test. I found out how small capacity the commercial washers really have, along with how unpredictably hot or cold the dryers could be. Your clothes were either toasted or still damp after an hour. I swear the dryers have an even more voracious appetite for odd socks than my own. Plus, I spent almost $25 in coin to get all of the clothes washed and dried.
Conclusion? I’ll stick to using my own machines at home, thank-you. Anybody weighing the costs should look into a second hand machine! Lots of folks are upgrading to the fancy new machines and abandoning their old ones, which still work great!
So, whatever you’re doing this weekend, I hope you’ve conquered your own personal laundry mountain and your whole week will be April fresh!
Cheers!
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