My Laundry Is Doin' Dirty Things!

Have you ever started doing laundry and as you're standing there sorting whites from colors it dawns on you that there is no way that your child has worn the amount of clothes that you are currently separating within the span of one week?  To look at the load of clothes I'm about to go through reminds me of one of the older cartoons when one pair of bunny slippers would "hop" into the shoe closet and then when the door opens again...voila - there were a slew of new born slippers.  Gross!  Is my laundry doing dirty things too?!  Anyway, I just about lost my mind a few months ago when I realized that my semi-easy task of sorting had become more of a strategic operation consisting of the following steps because of the amount of items my daughter was putting in her hamper.  First I separate the whites from the colors (easy like Sunday mornin'); second I take all the towels out from the colors to do them separately; then I weed through the clothing items that are colored and determine if they are a dark or light color.  But wait, there's more!  If soccer season is in full swing I separate all that uniform stuff out because it's that weird stay-dry material that should not be dried or have softener within ten feet of it because apparently it won't whisk the sweat away if "abused" by being laundered.  One might ask me why not do the laundry throughout the week?  I say to that NO WAY!  If I started doing that then I'd never feel like I was done and I crave the feeling of completion.  Besides, ever since we bought our candy apple red, front loading, energy efficient, thirty different settings washer and dryer (I am not exaggerating when I say the set is down right sexy!), I have added a new compulsion to my ever-growing list of pops and clicks.  <sigh> Once I am finally done with the washing machine, usually some time late in the night I (this is so ridiculous...unstoppable, but ridiculous) have to dry it!  There, it's out there now so I might as well go into detail as to what that consists of.  This is the exact order of the steps I take to ensure that my washer is all nice and dry:  I start by drying off the see-through window and then I move onto the seal.  The seal is tough because it likes to play keepsies with my wad o' paper-towels that I'm using when I shove it inside the flap. I go counter clockwise starting at the top to halfway around and then, starting back at the top, I go clockwise to the bottom thus completing a full "sweep" of the inner seal.  If my paper-towels lost the battle with the seal then I grab a few more and open the compartment where all the condiments went.  Now, it's important to use your towel real-estate wisely because there's lots of water left behind from whatever mystical way the detergents and softeners get sucked into the machine.  Fascinating!  I make sure to dry each compartment until I can't see a single glimmer of water anymore and then just to make sure that both my detergent area and main basin get completely dry, I prop the door open with the compartment thing that I keep pulled out so that the air can finish the job that I may not have completed as well as I'd like to think.  Usually those stay open overnight.  So you see, if I did laundry every night a lot of trees would die so I'm doing everyone a favor!  You're welcome.  Besides, I have dubbed Saturdays as my laundry day and that only changes with special circumstances...you know, like vacations, weekend trips to my parents house, and when my husband is stuck out of town for work and I want to be completely lazy (of course I tell him that I was waiting on his clothes before starting my all-day washing chore - not that he buys that for a skinny minute).


The most ridiculous thing about the amount of items I wash on any given weekend is that there are only three of us!  I can happily report that once I started having my little one (aka: I'll just throw this in the dirty basket instead of taking 2.5 seconds to refold it and put it away properly) help me fold and put away laundry that it has gotten much better.  Most people probably have their children help with that a lot earlier than me and I can say that it's completely and utterly my fault that I didn't delegate this chore years and years ago.  Well before I got my superstar washer and dryer I was already extremely picky about how I folded the clothes as well as what order the laundry was put in the basket for distribution.  As much as I needed to have my daughter help me, I just couldn't do it because of the times that I really did try to let her help I just ended up saying thanks and secretly refolding everything.  The one exception to my folding issue was, is, and always will be fitted sheets...I absolutely HATE those things!  You will find that if I can't put a fitted sheet directly on a bed after being laundered then it usually ends up in a big crumpled ball at the back of the bathroom closet.  So far in my life there are only two people that I know of that can fold those things and deep down I harbor a bit of jealousy towards them.  Also, I can't put the wad of sheets in my perfectly packed laundry basket so, as you can see, I have no room in my life for those infernal things.  Fitted sheets are the biggest sock and undies bandit too!  Sometimes they even steal a whole pair of jeans!!  How in the world does something as benign as a sheet with scrunchy corners maneuver in such a way that it can hide half a load of clothes?  I don't understand. 


Well, once again I find myself without a lesson learned or a cute wrap-up quip.  I was just airing my dirty laundry.  Tee-hee!




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