Laundry
Laundry. Like many other chores, it’s sysphean in nature. No sooner do you complete the task and you have to do it all over again. Lather, rinse, repeat. But there’s no other alternative. Well, to clarify, there is no other alternative if you value cleanliness and hygiene. Hey, I’m sure there are some people out there who don’t mind not washing their sheets every week. Or wearing that pair of jeans for like the 5th time. I, however am not one of them. I am a certifiable germaphobe, who HIGHLY values cleanliness and hygiene.
But before we go there, when I think about laundry, I can recall the first time I saw Ernie’s (who was my then college boyfriend) bedroom for the first time. We walked into his room and no lie, I could not even see the bed because of the mounds of laundry all over his floor. I mean, perhaps I should have gone running for the hills at that point (glad that I didn’t though, 38 years married and counting). But given my germaphobia, I should have recognized that on that point we were incompatible.
As it was, I stared, agape at what I saw. He must have noticed my expression. He kind of gave me an innocent, ‘what?’ look. I stuttered something like, ‘um, is that all dirty laundry?’ My germaphobic brain was starting to process this and was shouting at me like the robot from Lost in Space, “danger Will Robinson, danger”. I was thinking I was going to have to flee and flee fast.
His response however left me even more speechless. He answered that no, it was a combination of clean and dirty laundry. My look of confoundment must have then prompted him to explain further, that he knew which piles were clean and which were dirty. Oh, like that was supposed to be reassuring? There was a method to his madness?
I summoned what courage I could and waded a bit into the room. I’d like to say that it was like Moses parting the Red Sea, but not really. No clear path opened up. I just ended up slightly disturbing some of the piles causing minimal shifting. Then I could see the bed. It was just a mattress on the floor, no box spring or frame. At that point I think I turned to him and said, ‘so you wanna go back to my place?’ Here’s one for you: how not to get into your girlfriend’s pants—by having yours all over the bedroom floor in various stages of dirty and clean piles, piled so high you can’t even see the bed.
I’d like to say that his hygiene habits have improved over the years, but alas no. His idea of washing his hands is two seconds of water and a tiny spot of soap (doesn’t he know that you need to sing the Happy Birthday song twice or the Alphabet song once in order to get rid of all those nasty germs?). BUT, what I will say that is wonderful, is that the man does do his own laundry. He quickly grasped back in college, that dirty piles of laundry on his bedroom floor meant that Mary would not enter said bedroom. He started doing his laundry, although the concept of separating whites and darks escaped him. As a result, most of his white t-shirts were a shade of gray (not 50 shades of gray, mind you).
But the fun doesn’t stop there. The story of Mary and Ernie and their laundry continues. When we were first married, we lived in an apartment and would go to a laundromat to do our laundry.
We had a great system. First stop, Laundromat. Load a bunch of washers with our laundry (I taught him the value of separating whites from darks, as well as a cold delicate cycle vs hot normal cycle). We would combine our wash together in the various machines, ply the machines with coins, hit the wash button and then we were on our way to stop number 2: grocery shopping right next door.
We’d grab a grocery cart and start our food shopping for the week. Then, after a half hour or so when we knew the wash cycle would be done, we’d park our grocery cart out of the way in one of the aisles and head back next door to the Laundromat and load the wonderfully clean laundry into the dryers. Ply those machines with more quarters, hit the dry button and head back to the supermarket to finish our grocery shopping.
The timing was perfect such that, by the time we were done food shopping, the laundry was dry. Load the car with the groceries, head back into the Laundromat, throw the clean, dry clothes into the baskets, load them into the car for folding at home. Talk about efficient use of one’s time. I wonder if Franklin Covey has a chapter on that in his book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Those were fun times. We were a team. And somehow one of the worst chores ever was less worse.
And then we moved into a house, had kids. And suddenly the amount of laundry ballooned. Time could be measured by loads of laundry done. I’d be on my 6th load of laundry for the week, so that meant it must have been Tuesday. It wasn’t oh I have to do the laundry this week. It was, is there any time this week that I didn’t do laundry? Ernie’s contribution to the multiplication of our laundry loads? He did his own laundry. I couldn’t complain though that there wasn’t greater participation in washing clothes because he did other things, like the grocery shopping. So our teamwork shifted a bit.
And then, I counted the days until I could teach my kids how to be self-sufficient and they could do their own laundry. Oh what a glorious day that was. Come children, let me show you the wonders of these magical machines that wash and dry your clothes. See how simple it is? Just separate your colors, place each load in here, pour the detergent in there, shut the door and press the button and voila, in about 30 minutes your clothes will be clean.
And with that, we became a family of independent launderers, each maintaining responsibility for their own loads. Here’s a laundry basket for you, and a basket for you, and a basket for you! Sweet freedom. But you are never really free. Remember? It’s sysphean. So while I was back to just doing my own laundry, you are still doing laundry. The never ending cycle of dirty/clean/dirty/clean.
When I start to hate the drudgery of it though, I think of just how not difficult it is to do laundry. I am reminded of a tour we took through Ca D’Za—the Sarasota mansion of one of the Ringling brothers. There in the washroom, the guide described what it was like for the servant to do the laundry. Talk about drudgery and back breaking hard labor. No wonder they didn’t launder so much back then. Not enough servants.
Hmm, all this talk of laundry has me wanting to do anything but laundry or anything resembling house work at all. I think I’ll pour myself a glass of wine and relax. Perhaps a glass of pinot grigio. Something light and refreshing in this fall heat (global warming anyone?).
And if I spill any on my clothing, at least it’s not a chianti so it won’t leave a stain. But, it will still require washing. Laundry, the never ending cycle.