Friday, April 6, 2012

For the Love of Laundry

Last year I told you how much I hate doing dishes.

This year I am going to let you in on a shocking secret.

I love doing laundry!
Laundry
I know!  I know!  I don't deserve to call myself Non-Domestic.

But hear me out.

I started doing my own laundry when I was about ten years old.  Not because I was forced or even encouraged to.  I'm sure my mom made the casual comment, "Why don't you do your own laundry."  In response to some complaint of mine that this shirt wasn't clean or that skirt or whatever.  I doubt she actually expected me to take her seriously.  But I did.

And so it began.

I soon discovered the joy of laundry.

Maybe it's a bit strange but I used to love standing in the laundry room and listening to the sound of the washing machine.  It was always so soothing.  It was quiet.  I had peace and solitude in that room.  In the spring birds would lay eggs in the laundry room vent so the sound of baby chicks would mix with the swoosh of the washer and the smell of clean.

Heaven!!

Now in case you are getting too freaked out by my confession, I'll let you know the entire truth.  Yes, I love to wash the laundry.

However...


Putting it away?

Heck no!!

When I was still living at home I had a full size bed.  Plenty of room for me, my dog, and a nice large pile of clean laundry.

When I got to college and lived in a dorm and later in apartments my laundry love started to suffer a bit.

Gone were the days of doing a load here and there whenever I felt like it.  Gone were the days of my glorious solitude with the birds singing, the sweet swish-swishing and the sudsy aroma filling the air.

Suddenly laundry washing required a colossal effort.  I had to drag my giant overstuffed laundry basket up and down stairs, hope to find an open machine, load up that foul smelling machine, use my hard earned quarters, pay for my own soap, (the horror) and worst of all I was downgraded to a twin size bed with no room for piles of laundry.  Meaning, my friends, that if I was going to wash laundry I would also need to put that laundry, (gasp) you guessed it, away!

Ugh!

Now here I am in my own home with my own machine.  You would think I would be back to my old laundry loving ways.

But it's still not the same.

See, now I don't just have my own laundry to wash.  I have everyone's laundry to wash.  To be fair my husband does his own.  But the towels.  Oh the wretched towels.

I will never understand how I can wash two full (overloaded even) loads of towels and manage to run out two days later.

How!!!

And then to top things off the washing machine drain line is clogged.  So, I can't wash a load of laundry unless I attach a hose to the drain hose and run it out the laundry room window.  To lessen the embarrassment of this setup, (did I mention that the window leads out to, not only the front yard, but in fact our actual front walkway, directly smack dab in front of our front door) we only do laundry under the cover of darkness.  Let's face it.  There are only so many loads of laundry that can be done after it gets dark and we are always forgetting to do them until we wake up in the morning with nothing to wear.
Did you think I was kidding?
So, the laundry has built up into a Mount Laundry almost bigger than the laundry room itself.
Fear the wrath of Mount Laundry!
Also, since the downstairs bathtub is leaking and therefore not functional, I decided it would make a nice dirty laundry basket.
Just close the curtain and it all goes away!
An overflowing laundry room and a bathtub overstuffed with dirty laundry is just not very inviting.

To top it all off, even though we have a nice king sized bed, my silly husband objects to sleeping on with the clean laundry.  What is up with that?!

Still, I have found a solution to that problem.  We had a nice large unused container in one corner of the room, it used to be the baby crib but it has now been re-purposed into the clean laundry basket.
Genius!  I know!!
Someday I will once again rediscover the joys of the laundry.  Probably a few years after all my kids move out and we can finally afford to fix that drain!