The Laundering Business

The business of laundry in an apartment complex that doesn't have machines in each unit, but rather a community laundry room, can be a bit tricky. I'll just say it: it's a pain in the ass. It doesn't help that this mother-load (-loads, technically) is what's facing you every time you set out to accomplish this unwieldy chore:

I hid our unmentionables, you're welcome.

This beast is a week's worth and takes up four washers, so if I'm going to have a prayer of beating the after-5 laundry room rush, I have to carry it myself instead of waiting for the strong brute of a man to get home from work.... And we live on the second floor. I'm reminded weekly of my mortality when I'm carrying this approximately 750 pound behemoth as gingerly as possible down fifteen endless and very very concrete steps.

The real reason laundry is such a production is because I'm utterly and completely OCD about folding clothes. It was my job growing up to fold 8 children's + 2 parents' worth of laundry (this was a daily chore, as you can imagine the pile-up) and yes ok siblings, fine FINE fine, I elected myself president of folding because it entitled me to sit and watch TV for hours at a time while I completed the lengthy task, while you guys were relegated to the entertainmentless kitchen for dishwasher-emptying and stacking of the dirties. Mwa-aa-aa. But ALSO! I was the president because no one but I put the creases in the right spots in the towels; no one lined up the seams of the each pant leg so that they ran perfectly parallel to one another; no one made sure the socks were paired, folded in half at the heel, then stuffed one into the other.

No, who's "Monk"? I don't know what that is.

These days, however, certain rituals must be observed before I may be allowed to exorcise that bit of controlling crazy from my system each week.

1. Pile all the laundry on the floor. It will be as high as Jordan.

(didn't think to hide the boxers this time around so you might enjoy a peak at the festive candy-cane print nestled next to a cheery shamrock print. Am I the only wife to purchase her husband boxers themed for every holiday?)

2. Allow the big kid and the little kid to pounce upon and infect the freshly laundered with their unbathed bodies. 

Because it's fun.

3. Employ much head-scratching as the little kid engages in some kind of creative yet perplexing play in which she selects a piece of clothing, puts it upon her crown like a nun's habit, decides she doesn't like it there and flings about her neck like a scarf, and finally throws it in front of her face completely and dances an animated jig to Raffi's "Brush Your Teeth" until she runs smack into the bookshelf because she has voluntarily impeded her vision. Watch her become bored of that particular dishtowel, cast it aside, and select a fresh tunic victim.

Only after all of this pomp and circumstance am I permitted to do what I do best.

Let us focus not upon the countless dark stains in the carpet, the source of which Sean and I are completely at a loss to name (spots, thy names are....Jordan?), but instead upon all of this perfected goodness of obsessive compulsive. Neat piles of generically scented clothing framing a rectangle of space that I wall myself into when I set about to conquer the cliffs of absurdity. While watching Homeland, like days of yore. Well no, when I was home-schooled and conquering laundry I was probably watching My Man Godfrey or The Philadelphia Story or Laura or some 1930's-40's classic equivalent, but my point is laundry goes hand in hand with a good screen story.

That's how we get our jollies around here. An edge-of-your-seat foldfest. Pret-ty dangerous if you ask me.