Laundry

Laundry

I hate doing laundry. I hate it so much that I wait until everything I own is dirty before I face it. Why is it that women know the difference between the colors and the whites? Men don’t. To us it’s simple. If it’s underwear or T-shirts it’s white, everything else is colors. We bought a new Samsung front loading washer. I know that Samsung makes TV’s, DVD players and Cellphones, all of which I can’t operate very well, why I would think a washer would be any different is beyond me. It has a Sanitizing cycle, Bedding cycle, Steam cycle, Normal cycle, Delicate cycle, hot wash, cold rinse, warm wash, cold rinse , cold wash, hot rinse, normal load, Jumbo load, large load, small load and automatic load. Why isn’t automatic load all there is? I’m sure this thing would get HBO if I could figure out how to hook it to the dish. With me it’s automatic load, hot wash and cold rinse. Period. Everything I own has a red or blue tint to it. I have come to think of this as a character trait and NOT a sign of failure. Once the washing is done comes the real work. Drying and folding. It always starts like this; Take everything out of the washer and throw it in the dryer. Set the heat as high as it will go so it will finish faster and I can get this over with as soon as possible. I start the dryer and then watch it like a hawk. When it’s almost completely spinning, I fling the door open, ignoring the burns from the steel tumbler and red hot zippers, and pull everything out into my basket. Like a nascar driver coming out of turn four, I open the garage door slinging it wide, and send my two dogs scrambling for cover in terror. I’ve cleared off the couch, the end tables and usually a TV tray that has become a permanent piece of living room furniture. I dump the basket on the couch and begin separation. I have a particular style of lint removal that I am very proud of. I pick each garment up and raising them over my head I snap them downward in a whipping motion that a ringmaster controlling a tiger would be proud of. It didn’t take me but twice to remember the ceiling fan. In one solid move two things happen. One, the lint is removed completely and two, the dogs bolt upright ready to fight or flee. The shirts and pants that need hanging are immediately removed from the pile and the lint removal process applied. I rush to the bedroom, grab seven hangers, rush back, put them on the hangers and then hang them on the door jamb. Now on to separation completion. It’s usually during this second separation process that I discover one of my wife’s favorite rayon, nylon, polyester, whatever, blouse, shirt, top or whatever, in the mix. It now fits an eight year old. Damn. Thinking quickly, I wrap it in a newspaper to conceal it and throw it away. One of my daughters will get blamed for stealing it eventually. I can live with that. I then start with my favorite logo Tee’s. I apply the lint removal process to each, smoothing them out and lay them on a flat spot on the couch. Next are the shorts and then the socks, underwear and white T-shirts. Now I fold, beginning a stack on the coffee table with my Logo Tee’s. Then the shorts, then the white T-shirts, underwear and socks. I leave the underwear until last because no one cares if they’re wrinkled or not. Well, maybe Mom…she used to tell me I should always have on clean underwear so if I got in an accident the EMT’s or Doctors wouldn’t think less of me. The dogs have came out from their shelter now, stretching, but still keeping a wary eye on me. I take the one sock that doesn’t have a match to my overflowing orphan sock drawer. I have socks in there from 1982. Making seven trips, I put everything else away. Done. Record time of…2 hours and 45 minutes. Now I feel like I’m a pretty darn normal person, but…is it like this in every household? I get up the next day, do my coffee thing, shower and get dressed. My clothes are wrinkled and have a red tint, but at least they smell like springtime in the Rockies. Or that’s what they’re supposed to smell like, I’ve never been to the Rockies….