Weeping and wailing.
Gnashing teeth. Eternal and
endless my torment.
All right. So maybe laundry isn't the most inspiring topic for the first thing you ever hear from me. But I've got laundry on the brain this week. Well, really I've got laundry on the brain most of the time. And all over the basement, and overflowing every hamper and basket in the house, and on the kids' bedroom floors, and in the bathroom, and ...
There are ten of us living in our home, and we have a LOT of laundry! And even though five of the ten could definitely help with the wash, usually only one of us does. It's kind of a drag.
I am unfair, I suppose. Sometimes Bruce, or my older kids will put a load in the washer--sometimes they even put it into the dryer too. In fact, Michael (age 16) did a load just last night! The trouble is that nobody wants to fold it or put it away (Mom's job! Mom's job!). Well, Brandon (age 10) almost always does put his stuff away. As for the folding, I have to admit that I am fussy about how neatly the clothes are folded. When I was growing up my grandmother, Vovis (pronounce: "Vah-veez"), folded all the laundry--even the tights and underwear were absolutely wrinkle-free. So I was spoiled in that I never had to fold my own clothes, and they were always perfectly beautiful. But I think I've reached the point where I would not complain about how untidily my kids' clothes are folded if they would just fold them. Instead, in my house the clothes generally pile up about twice as high as the hampers they are in before I get around to folding them. I admit it's partially because I really hate taking care of the ding-dang stuff--I mean, truly it is eternal and endless! But it's also partially because I am a very busy mom.
Then there's the problem of actually getting the clothes into the dressers. You'd think that once I had spent the day washing, drying and folding everything the kids could carry it to their rooms and put it away. You'd be surprised. They will carry a stack of shirts all the way into their room and set it, neatly folded, on the floor right in front of the dresser. It must be really draining for them to carry it so far; opening the drawer and putting it inside--and then closing the drawer--would probably injure them. They might need to lie down afterward! A few weeks later, after I've hollered at the kids to clean up their rooms, I can find the same clothes, still folded, in the dirty hamper. I would put it into their drawers myself at that point if it hadn't been buried under wet towels and dirty socks for several days. No, no, it must be washed again.I always used to think that once I've got the laundry all caught up--meaning that for at least five minutes of the day there is nothing left to be washed, dried or folded--then I could just do one or maybe two loads a day (instead of twenty every couple of weeks). This has never really happened. So for a while now my new, secret plan has been to wash and fold all of the clothes while no one is looking. When I sneak into their rooms to "put the clothes away," I will search the drawers and get rid of 50 percent of everything. That way, in the future I will only have half the usual laundry-trauma. Of course, after trying to carry out my diabolical scheme I might have to lie down. And when I got up all the laundry would be dirty again.
Well, so here I am right now, today, this very minute. I survey my work of two days and I feel very pleased--everything has been washed and folded, except for the last, one, single load that's drying! Not bad! I think I'll go lie down.
