The Laundry Hamper
BC Parent October 1999
Sydney’s Child November 2000
Being a die-hard optimists I like to consider my cup half-full – the ups and downs of life in the nineties are easier to cope with if I do. However, when it comes to the laundry hamper, I prefer to consider it half-empty; it helps me remain sane.
Recently it has come to my attention that in every letter I have ever written there is at least one paragraph dealing with laundry. That never-ending mountain of dirty clothes. Somewhere in my correspondence I’ll mention the fact that I’m wading through it, avoiding it, tripping on it – or – hearing it beckon, taunt or heckle. It’s a topic of conversation. It’s hell.
Where does it come from? This is an age-old question, one which has plagued mothers since Eve dropped her fig leaf. It is my opinion that laundry reproduces. Somewhere in the dark confines under beds, behind doors or stuffed with clean clothes in drawers, dirty laundry copulates. How has remained a mystery to modern science, but the evidence lies in the ever-increasing pile inside the hamper. There are always more socks and underpants in there than days-of-the-week times people-in-residence.
It’s a fact that one of the reproducing pair of socks will eventually leave home. Perhaps this is a sign of the times; commitment ain’t what it used to be; or maybe there really is a sock eating monster hiding in the lint catcher of the dryer (or could the missing sock BE the lint in the catcher?). Regardless, there will always be a single sock left when you’ve finally finished folding the laundry. We’ve created a society at our house, the S.O.S.S (Save Odd Sock Society). In order to qualify for membership the sock must have completed at least one spin cycle in the washer sans-mate and have waited through two or more laundry days. Once initiated into the Society, members await their mission: volunteered to become a puppet for a craft class at school, or occasionally re-married to a sock of similar fate and color. We have started to buy multiple pairs of the same socks; this way over the course of a month or two, lost socks can be united with mates of other lost socks – sort of a dating service, if you will.
Along with the clothes, I also launder money. Having never been a pocket checker, I find there’s usually a fair amount of change at the bottom of the washing machine. I leave it there, keeping a mental tally of how much is rattling around, until I have enough to go out for coffee. This odd form of savings is never in jeopardy of being discovered, as I’m the only person who ever looks into the washing machine.
This anti-pocket-checking fetish has a down side. Over the years I’ve washed a variety of unwashable items such as: little black books, pens and crayons, receipts, parking tickets and my all-time favorite, tissue. Of all items, tissue is the most undesirable to launder. Although soft on the nose and strong enough for a man-sized sneeze, it disintegrates in the washer.
An undiscovered half-crayon, strategically wedged in the tiny pocket of a youngster’s overalls, can wreak havoc. Surviving the wash, it quietly makes its way into the dryer, where it melts and oozes through everything else in the machine. This isn’t covered by our household insurance policy; consequently the rag-bag becomes host to some very fashionable articles.
From time to time I’ll go on a cleaning frenzy. Everything that will fit into the washing machine makes its way in there: scatter-mats, curtains and pillows. Pillows are a chapter on their own. Some wash like a darn, others – well, others have a tendency to surprise you. Just when you think you’re heading for the home stretch – one last load to do and the house will be spic-and-span, you open the washer and find it full of tiny particles of foam rubber. The pillow that your mother-in-law painstakingly embroidered in the same colors as the couch has exploded. A catastrophe of hummungous proportions. Not only is every nook and cranny of the Maytag clogged with chips of sponge, but your mind begins to overload with scenarios of how to deliver the eulogy for the family heirloom. This is a laundry day at its worst.
I vowed, years ago, never to own a laundry basket. I grew up with a laundry basket. My mother wasn’t any better at getting the laundry put away than I am. The laundry basket, consequently, lived at the foot of her bed. Given that my sisters, mother and I had posteriors of relatively equal size, every morning of my school-aged life I would race upstairs and search through the basket for the ‘best’ pair of underwear. It was a first come, first served scenario. Bent on surpassing my mother in her laundering abilities, I promised myself that MY children would NEVER have to do that.
When the surface of our dryer is buried under enough folded clothes that it becomes an avalanche hazard when being passed, I begin the monotonous task of carrying the clean clothes upstairs to my sorting surface, my bed. Once there, it’s as much of a hassle getting the kids to pick up their clean clothes as it is having them deposit the dirty ones in the hamper. More often than not the pile of clothes remains there until long after they have retired for the night. I then move the collection to the floor at the foot of my bed. Eight hours later I watch them rifle through the mess, looking for the best pair of underwear. Some things never change. It makes me wonder what demons my other was running from.
Once in a blue moon I reach the bottom of the hamper. Everything in the house is washed, dried, folded and sorted. The kids come home from school, I tell them about my accomplishment and solicit their help in sealing the deal. They respond by putting their laundry away. One of them will invariably be inspired to clean their room. A day heaven sent. Suddenly the hamper is half-empty again!