This is a guest post from the hilarious Robin O’Bryant of Robin’s Chicks. We kind of want to adopt her.
I hate doing laundry. It is the most pointless task on the planet, aside from wrapping Christmas presents, which will be ripped to shreds and thrown away.
You may be asking yourself, “Am I really going to read an article about laundry?” I don’t know, but you should know I am an expert. I’d estimate that B.C. (before children) I spent at least 30 percent of my life doing laundry. After kids, it’s more like 80 to 90 percent. So it should be encourage you to know that the next few minutes of your life are going to be spent learning from an expert.
I have to pass my laundry room every time I walk in and out of my house. It reminds me of running at the speed of light past my darkened closet as a child– my heart hammering in my chest and always on my tiptoes. I didn’t want the Boogie Man to be able to grab my whole foot when he reached for me. Just like my closet, I try to avoid even looking at my laundry room, but it’s impossible.
Erma Bombeck said, “My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.” This is exactly how I feel about the whole laundry process.
It’s not just the washing and drying– that’s the easy part, the part the machine does for you, but the rest of the process leaves me cursing and sweating.
I jam clothes into the washer without too much difficulty but once they get wet it’s like wrestling a 500 pound octopus to get them from the washer to the dryer. I reach in for an armload and inevitably the leg of my husband’s pants is wrapped around a sheet, which is tied in sailor’s knots around the arm of my shirt. I pull. I tug. I sweat. I say bad words. I finally jerk all the clothes free and load them into the dryer. This is my favorite part, because then I get to push a button and feel like I’ve accomplished something if only for a few minutes, or until that blasted timer goes off.
Then it’s time to fold and sort. And match socks. Sigh.
For the love of all that is good and holy, I could write a entire book about how much I hate to match socks. We all know the sock gremlin comes under the cover of darkness to steal away handfuls of socks, just enough so that you never have a pair that actually matches. With three daughters stacked like stairs, deciphering one sock from another almost requires a degree, or at least a magnifying glass. I’ve tried buying brand new socks and numbering the sizes, but the gremlin, he mocks me. He comes and steals them, regardless.
It’s not uncommon for me to give up, just close my eyes and grab a sock with each hand. I mean, really, in the scheme of things, does it matter if my 6-year-old is wearing one of her daddy’s athletic socks like a thigh-high stripper boot and one of her sister’s ankle socks at the same time? I don’t think so.
Ironing is a different animal altogether. There are literally no words in the English language that can accurately describe how much I loathe ironing– all that standing still, thinking, concentrating, working out microscopic wrinkles, straightening tiny little pleats. You turn a wrinkled mess into a show room masterpiece, a museum quality work of art. You carefully and lovingly hang your piece de resistance in your family’s closets.
Do they open their closets with the awe and adoration worthy of all your hard work? Do they even say thank you? Nope. They nonchalantly pull on the shirts and dresses you have slaved over, and WEAR them. Sometimes I can barely even speak to my husband in the morning, I’m so distracted that he had the nerve to get up and put on a shirt. I realize the alternative is that he go to work topless, but still.
Maybe Erma was on to something. Maybe we need bunk beds.
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I feel your pain… And I too hated matching freaking socks so here is what I did…
I threw out ALL of the socks we had. Yup. For us girls I bought black socks and shortie white ones. We all wear them, they all match. Son and hubby now have black socks and grey wool socks, they all match, they both wear them. Easy Peasy.
Oh, and I deemed folding laundry one of the girls’ chores ;) (Son has his, not to worry. I hate unloading the dishwasher. His job.)
Just rereading your entertaining and all too true post and have to wonder, what exactly is IRONING? ;)
Yep… hate laundry.
Twitter Name: Faiqa
I gave up ironing years ago. My children couldn’t identify one. Great post!
Twitter Name: annsrants
Thanks ladies!
I iron my husband’s work shirts. He tells me not to bother but if he goes to work looking like HELL I know everybody there is thinking, “WHAT DOES HIS WIFE DO ALL DAY??”
I have found a dry cleaners who will press only for .99$ a shirt. Goodbye iron.
Twitter Name: robinobryant
Laundry sucks. But then again, so does ironing. But I’ve solved that problem. Completely. I just don’t iron anymore. Haven’t for years. I have a friend who does her ironing once a month…and I mean ALL DAY once a month. WTH? I can’t even wrap my brain around that. I have a “wrinkle out” feature on my dryer. It’s not as good as ironing, but it’s better than nothing. But I stopped ironing long before I got my dryer with that feature. A few wrinkles on clothes never hurt anyone. That’s my philosophy. And I’m sticking to it.
Twitter Name: TinaliciousMe
Laundry – ugh! As I sat here reading this my dryer buzzed and I thought “I wonder if I could get away with turning that blasted thing on again” I hate folding and putting away…..
I love “hammer” as a verb for heart pounding. I think it’s pretty accurate, too. Laundry has the same effect on me.
Twitter Name: cartooninperson
Alright. You hate laundry, but you mentioned a laundry room. How much would you hate it if you lived in a house build over a 100 years ago when clothes were boiled in lye and hung on lines — all done outdoors. There are no laundry rooms in 110 year old houses. Unless you have more money than we ever did and can build one. My washer/dryer sits in my kitchen. Piles of laundry everywhere. There is no door to shut. And when I am doing laundry there always is an open bag of chips taunting me. ugh.
Twitter Name: southmainmuse
My washer and dryer are on the screened back porch of my 1950 home. I FEEL like I’m living a hundred years ago…minus the washboard and boiling lye, which would insure we all wore our clothes 15x before washing them.
Twitter Name: izzymom
I loathe folding laundry. Sorting, washing, drying I’m OK with, but I hate the follow up. Whenever Hoss is in trouble, I use matching socks as his punishment- it’s a fantastic motivator to make him behave.
Twitter Name: MamaKaren
Couple of years ago, when I was postpartum, I’d had a bad day…really bad day. I picked up a pile of unmatched socks, threw them towards my (wonderful) hubby, and said, “I’m done, I don’t match socks, you want them done, do it yourself!” Haven’t matched socks since. I love that man!
Jamie and IzzyMom I FEEL you! The ONLY good thing about the laundry sitch at my house is that I can slam the freaking door and pretend it isn’t there until my husband asks where all his underwear is.
Twitter Name: robinobryant
Single full time father with two teenaged boys seeking experienced laundry help to deal with the huge piles of laundry that accumulate in the boys rooms. Must be able to cope with young men who place folded laundry on the floor with dirty clothes thus mixing what is washed with what is dirty, forcing the dreaded sniff test. Must be willing to IRON, because sitting in the dryer for 3 days minimum makes clothes wrinkled past the point of no return. Must understand that bleach burns holes in dark clothes.
Let’s not even get started on dishes and the correct use of a dishwasher….
‘does it matter if my 6-year-old is wearing one of her daddy’s athletic socks like a thigh-high stripper boot and one of her sister’s ankle socks at the same time? I don’t think so.’
BEST LINE EVER!
Well thankyouverymuch!
Twitter Name: robinobryant