I have always had a love-hate relationship with the laundry. Doing the laundry has been my job since I was in 8th or 9th grade. My mom gave me the choice of doing the dishes nightly, or taking on the family’s laundry. I chose laundry. My mom told me I could do it anyway I wanted as long as my dad had clean shirts and socks on Mondays. I got pretty efficient at it, scheduling my part-time jobs around Sunday laundry days. I’ve been doing laundry so long that I have honestly become a little militant about how I want things sorted. When summer comes we get out the clothes line and I admit I get some enjoyment from hanging clothes on the line to dry even though line drying produces cardboard-like towels.
As any mom can attest to, laundry is a never ending evil. I do laundry on Saturdays and the feeling of satisfaction that comes from that last load coming out of the dryer is met with discouragement when I walk into the bedroom of one of my boys and see a pile of clothes on the floor that has not made it to the laundry room. These days the rule has become, “If you don’t get it to the laundry room by Saturday, you do it yourself.” I think the ability to do one’s own laundry is an important life skill anyway.
Recently, my washer was starting to fail and clothes seemed to come out of the washer dirtier than they went in. The spin cycle needed to be repeated just to get things from sopping to just wet. The dryer wasn’t much better. It took almost an hour to get an average load of laundry dry. The love-hate relationship with laundry was quickly becoming just hate.
My husband had been trying for quite some time to get me to break down and purchase a new washer and dryer. After a few hours at Lowes with a very knowledgeable and patient salesperson, I had my beautiful new Maytag set home and stacked in my laundry room. What a difference! These things almost think for themselves. They have really brought cleaning clothes to a whole new level.
This past week since I have gotten my new washer and dryer my hate for laundry has turned to love. I literally walk around the house with a basket in my hands saying, “Anyone need anything washed?” Sure, that makes me some sort of stereotypical middle-aged housewife, but who cares? The whites are whiter and the brights are brighter and everyone’s got clean socks on Monday.
Published June, 2011
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