Ever since I became primarily a stay at home mom, there seems to be some kind of mystical illusion as to how I fill days.  My husband’s perception of my day mirrors how he spends his stretch away from the office.  Days as such are spent without restrictions, relaxing in the recliner, computer in hand, calling out “it is too noon somewhere.” He is positive my schedule is comparable.  So when he asks the required yet banal question “what’d you do today?” and I reply with “laundry;” his normal response is “okay, so that took ten minutes. What did you do with the other seven hours?”

Immediately, I bristle.  I refrain from cursing (a big deal) and tell him laundry isn’t easy; it’s actually a big deal.  His response? “There is nothing to just laundry.  You throw it in the washer. You throw it in the dryer.  Signed, sealed, and delivered. Bam. Done.”

My laundry room suddenly transforms into a boxing ring and adrenaline surges through my body. I am Million Dollar Baby (with a better ending). He senses my attack and we begin to slowly circle one another and head to our respective corners.  In my mind I hear Michael Buffer sing “Let’s get ready to rumble! In this corner weighing in at an undisclosed amount, we have our reining and undefeated laundry champion of the world.  In the next corner, weighing in at a butt load of chauvinism is the challenger’s husband.” I am pumped, poised, and ready to begin my fight, my fight for the respect just laundry deserves.

And so I begin. Would you like to change jobs? Would you like to do our own Freaky Friday?

You watch some movies today?  But, sure, I will do just laundry.  Easy.

Somehow, I once again ignore the patronizing comment and commence.  Although it is extremely difficult to put into words everything doing laundry means, I will try. Before we begin, you must agree to uphold the sacred oath of the laundry office.  When you send your family out of this house, it is a reflection upon you.  They look bad, you look bad.   So, follow these guidelines.  They may save your life.

For crying out loud, your flair for drama is clearly showing but, okay.

First, realize that laundry is never truly done.  The euphoria you feel as you conquer the mountainous pile is short lived; items will be added immediately when a squatter returns home.  Be advised, a shirt that is merely wrinkled and not in need of a washing may be sneaked into the basket by a lazy assailant.  Let him/her know this is not acceptable.  Washing clean clothes is extremely unsatisfying.  Do not mince words during this lecture. I think you’ve heard it before.

To even begin, make sure to have a running stock of detergent, good smelling pebbles, bleach, vinegar, and stain remover.  Each is vital to the desired outcome. No, these are not new-fangled products; I can’t help it that you aren’t familiar with each indispensable item. Educate yourself.  Research carefully for hours through Consumer Reports and have endless conversations with colleagues on which products are superior. Make sure to never run out of said product. If one item gets low and there is no replacement on the shelf, you may feel a slight nervous palpitation of the heart.  Don’t let it come to a full blown panic attack.  Run to the local grocery store and pay the outrageous price.  It’s worth it.  No, I am not buying it for you.  In order for you to own the process, you must select the products.

Okay, so obviously, separate the clothes not only by color by but activity.  Work, play, sports, etc. Set the washer accordingly for soil level and type of wash. Construction of the load is a critical thinking skill. You may have to adjust piles.  Take into consideration the types of fabrics and what fabrics wash well together.  Well, duh.  Cotton, polyester, spandex, wool, jean, and numerous other blends. I know you are not familiar with various textiles but you need to become familiar. Remember when you shrank my wool sweater when we attempted to be laundry partners? It was catastrophic in our young marriage.  It was too.  I loved that sweater. It was not ugly.  Furthermore, physics are also important. It doesn’t matter that I failed the actual physics class; had the professor used realistic terms, I might have done better. You must consider how long the load of that particular fabric will take to wash/dry and how long you have before you must begin the chauffeur, homework, and dinner shift. Wet clothes cannot sit in the washer; mildew is your constant adversary. Preparation is a part of the great laundry schema.  Prioritize essential items.

Honestly, essentials are items such as uniforms.  Be sure to check the sports calendar daily, even hourly, and memorize it.  Home and away uniforms are different and it is in your best interest to memorize these for each kid and each sport.   Doing so ensures warding off frantic phone calls, impending disasters, and extreme embarrassment.  Do you want the look from other parents? Have uniforms washed, dried, and put in the respective owner’s basket.  You will have to memorize all apparel proprietorship.  What? The baskets are color coded.  Do you ever even look in the laundry room? You do too have one.  It is white; I have told you that. Your t-shirt that makes you look like “The Rock” may very well be in that basket.  You have not participated in the scheduled “Put your clothes away day” for months. You most certainly have been invited.  It will now be your job to schedule and to monitor closely these days.  Without this, chaos will reign, people will be late, and there will be tantrums, possibly fist fights. Don’t wash the uniforms with the normal clothes and use the special soap you researched for heavy odors. Just because that is the way it is done. Pay attention to sweaty pit stains. Keep an eye out for blood, grass, and carroty clay dirt stains.  Each sport brings its own respective washing challenges.  Watch for rips in uniforms.  However, ask before you sew a hole in the football uniform or even scrub out a blood stain.  Those are badges of honor, so I was told.  Okay, I took it to someone to sew; that is a moot point.  But the owner was really aggravated that I repaired it and I heard about it game after game.  Oh, and check the lucky socks after each game.  You don’t want to make a hell bent trip to the sporting goods store on short notice for a sneaky sock swap.  I can’t help it that you don’t agree with the lucky sock or underwear theory.  I will leave it to you to rationalize this concept with your hysterical athlete before the impending game.

Above all,  size loads appropriately.  I know you think you did that when we were first married.  Remember, how you put so many clothes in the washer the inner layer didn’t even get wet? That isn’t acceptable.  You might get lectured if clothes don’t smell fresh.  Our kids have very sensitive noses.  They can tell if you haven’t done your job.  For instance, pajamas.  They expect clean pjs every night; those supersonic noses can smell even slightly overripe clothing.   Well your own clean pajamas do not just walk themselves to your drawer every night.  I guess you can try to fool them with unwashed items. It’s your job on the line and when they unionize in dispute of administrative practices, they are a formidable bunch.

Speaking of your life, your work clothes need to be immediately removed from a warm dryer and hung quickly to avoid wrinkling.  They look pretty good if you pay careful attention to the dryer cycle.  Heating up the same load twenty-five times when you continually forget to unload it is not all that effective.  My clothes are a different story.  The tags might as well state “wash and dry me and I will NEVER look the same.”  The more you F*&# with these clothes the more irritated you may become.  I am glad you asked that question.  Because the cruel and entrenched arm of patriarchy is no less evident than in the laundry.  All of your clothes readily state “Easy Care! Yeah! Wrinkle Free! Yeah! Wash and wear! Yippee!”  Women’s clothes are outlandish in size, shape, and construction.  Some need the delicate cycle, some need low dry, some need hung up to dry, some need to lie flat, some need ironed. What? Yes, we do own an iron. We do too.  This clothing amalgamation is ALL by design to keep us in the laundry room, in our place.  Society passes judgement on how we look, specifically women.  You go out looking like a bum, it is Bohemian, charming, laisse-faire; kudos to the man who casts off society’s strangulating restrictions. A woman goes out looking like a bum and she is lazy, un-kept, and most likely, unloved. Because of her dress, a malignant rumor will be born and follow her for quite some time, evidence of this is in. . .  What? No, I am certain my students are not bored; they feel empowered by my discourse.  We already decided it was a good thing you were never in my class.

Furthermore, check all pockets.  Never mind that I have washed your wallet in the past.  I assume you are going to do better.  Crayons, Chapstick, and your dumb ink pens are particularly devastating.  Don’t let these enemies set you back.  If the assailant slips by, again, painstaking research is your friend.  Above all, don’t cry.  Then the bastard won and you can’t let that happen. Clean the washer frequently.  Are you kidding me? Yes, it gets dirty and no, it isn’t self- cleaning.  It’s not an oven.

Put all delicate washables in lingerie bags.  Heavy sigh.  It is a small white mesh bag with holes. Okay, yes, like a football bag.  Putting delicates in bags prolongs the life of the items.  Seriously? Things that look delicate, like a bra or a frilly top. Bras get twisted when not in a bag.  It is feasible that you might spend fifteen minutes untangling a knotted bra. Other belongings that look suspicious go in a bag; items that may get sucked out the tube and possibly clog the washer which may result in a $200 repair bill.  I did ask you to look at the washer.  You were busy.  The laundry operation cannot afford to be down for any length of time. Be advised that some of the under garments may make you uncomfortable. You will have just have to work through it.  I refuse to go into detail; it is simply too shocking. I do keep emergency rubber gloves by the washer. Remove the pads from the sports bras to dry separately and do not put the bras in the dyer.  Okay, again, I didn’t design the sport bra or the bra in general but at upwards of $30 a pop, you’d best take care of those items.  No, that isn’t where all of your money is going. It’s going lots of places. Furthermore, when you notice a bra is failing in quality, get rid of it but schedule a shopping day with your daughter for replacement.  I shouldn’t have to take her since I won’t know when these garments become faulty.  You can use these trips to have healthy and meaningful discussions about body image, sex, violence, drugs, and privacy.   I have too taken the boys.  I told you they took the cups out of the packages and ran through the store with them on the outside of their pants. Why do you look so pale? It is all part of just laundry.

An overall duty is, in fact, maintenance of clothing items. Scrub the ring around the collar out of your work shirts.  You do too have it, you just don’t know you have it because I fix it.  Non-consequential socks with holes go into the basket to make dog toys.  Keep an eye on the Goodwill box.  Ugh! It is a box in the laundry room where you put the items you deem, for whatever reason, no longer of use.  No, your “Rock” t-shirt isn’t in it.  Check your white basket. But don’t get rid of special items; those items go in the box in my closet. You know, like to make a t-shirt quilt when the kids graduate.  Geez, because you have to have a clear vision of the future.  A future when the role as patron of the laundry diminishes.

It is in these moments though, that I must warn you of the waves of sentimentality that may move upon you.  Moments like these come on quickly and virtually without warning.  Yes, during laundry.  One day, as I pulled our oldest son’s extra-large football jersey from the wash, I suddenly remembered the very first load of laundry I did for my very first baby.  Was anything sweeter than that first load? I remember folding every miniature onesie so carefully and the jeans! Those so small jeans that I couldn’t wait to put on him. I remember dressing him like my living doll while paying careful attention to the softest most blissfully scented skin imaginable. Pulling out a large fetid sport sock sometimes makes me long for those splendidly small socks that the washer perpetually ate in every load.   I then realize the sport sock is larger than his first pair of jeans. I remember the truly honest to God miracle of creation when this child was placed in my arms for the first time.  I ache to go back to that moment that no photograph, except for my minds’ eye, can truly capture and I worry endlessly about the possibility of forgetting that moment.  As I pull a blanket from the dryer, I remember the security blankets that are still in the kids’ rooms but now as an after-thought. How can these items that were so loved now collect so much dust? I recall the last minute frantic searches for “kee-kee,” and the Halleluiah of relief when found. I remember thinking I was never going to smell like anything but baby; my nose is frequently overcome with longing for the distinct and reassuring smell of Dreft.  I have to fight the urge to run and buy a box and I still linger in front of it at the store. When I removed our teenage daughter’s sundress from the lingerie bag, my eyes filled with the sight of her first multi-colored iridescent princess dress.   She twirled and swirled that dress day after day for months on end, so much so that it began to disintegrate before our eyes.  I feel the crinkly scratchy fabric that dented my skin as I rocked her to sooth away the nightmare phase.  Remember when I had to crawl into her room in the dark of night to sneak out the dress for a washing? I still consider this the greatest heist of my career. It is in these times that I realize the days I thought would never end have indeed ended.  They ended with a finality that I was and am woefully unprepared. So, in these times, if you suddenly find yourself slumped by the washer clinging desperately to a sweaty jersey with tears spilling down your face, try to not worry.  I assume this is normal.  I do know that the recovery time from an episode varies. Spending an hour in a fetal position may not be the best solution, but if it works, it works. Laundry is a dangerous job.  Be knowledgeable and have a plan.

I begin to think about plans.  Plans I made, plans that worked, and didn’t work.  How life interrupted my plans.  Sometimes joyfully, sometimes sorrowfully.  I realize I don’t have a plan for when all of this laundry ends and honestly, it terrifies me.  Won’t having so little laundry leave a vacancy in my heart?  Won’t I ache for this bedlam that I try so hard to control but fail miserably? At this point I stop and look at the guy across from me.  I see him lying in the boxing ring and Buffer counts him out cold. I am fairly certain he sees that too. I realize I haven’t even gotten to the towel and bedding washing schedules. Dog blanket washing, curtain washing (well in my mind I wash these).  I need more time to explain special event washing like items that have been victimized by horrific bouts of stomach flu. After all, you can’t be declared the sovereign ruler of laundry until you have battled consecutive, simultaneous expulsion of bodily fluids on various items within a twenty foot radius of the aggressor.

But I push beyond that too and think about the laundry I have done for him over the years.  The sports, the army, the farm, the blue-collar, the professional.  Each article of clothing tells a story about our journey together. Laundry is dirty business and we have shared a lot of it.  I think, if you can survive the dirty laundry, you can survive anything.  Each load tells a story of our life.  It’s an unpredictable story, it’s a dirty story, but it comes out pretty clean in the end.