There’s one thing that never ceases to amaze me on a weekly basis and that’s the amount of clothes we go through in this house. I’m sure someone sneaks in here and deposits their laundry in my basket. It used to be a weekly ironing pile I faced on a Sunday – now it’s a veritable mountain with an accompanying mountain range of bedcovers, towels, socks and knickers!
How can four people generate so much laundry in one week?
I’m convinced that once it’s placed in the laundry basket in the cupboard in the utility room that it breeds in the dark.
Shirts! They are like magnets and attract other shirts – usually tangling themselves in each other’s sleeves as an act of solidarity in the washing machine. Between Monday and Friday the three shirt-wearing inhabitants manage to dirty fifteen of them! Grrrr
Socks are another nuisance. Pesky wee things! I’m sure they are playing games with me. At the end of last week I had three “odd” dark socks. What the Hell I thought and threw them back into the laundry basket in the hope that they would be magically reconciled with their partners. It worked! However three other pairs got “divorced” and I still have three “odd” socks!
You’d think, logically, that Girl Child would be the worst offender for generating excessive amounts of washing. True, she does that teenage girl thing – wears it once or sometimes even just tries it on and decides not to wear it – and throws it in the general direction of the washing basket.
Wrong!
The Big Green Gummi Bear is the culprit. His love of water sports and daily trips to the gym are to blame. At the weekend he can work his way through three or four sets of t-shirts, socks and underwear per day. If left unattended for more than twenty four hours this sweaty wet pile exacts its revenge and begins to emit the most foul odour of Eau d’River Clyde. (The washing that is not the Big Green Gummi Bear…well maybe occasionally)
Ironing also has its own magic powers. My rule of thumb is that “if it doesn’t get ironed on Sunday then it has to wait until next week”. I’m a bit OCD about getting it all done on a Sunday (watching MotoGP or Formula 1 does help to get through it quicker). I’ll sort it into two piles- shirts and stuff that requires a cooler iron. By the time I’ve set up the ironing board and the iron, there’s invariably a cat, Frankenstein, sound asleep in the middle of it – on top of something black of course.
I surrender! I’m away to investigate the pros and cons of joining a nudist colony.
Only joking- I’m actually away to hang out the washing!
Coral McCallum 