The four of us Kotrbas are even pretty frugal about our clothes pile. We use the same towels over and over. Kids wear the same play clothes. Bill swims so he doesn't have a bunch of sweaty workout clothes. I don't exactly get filthy dirty teaching piano, so I can wear things more than once. We still have our own little Everest by the end of the weekend.
I saved a little money and I thought, maybe for a treat, just for a couple weeks I should hire someone to do the laundry. Problem. I'm too psycho. A control freak. What if someone else doesn't get the chocolate pudding out of Mary's new skirt. What if. . . as if I'm the only person who knows the deep dark secret stains of my family. Seriously, the only person on this earth I would truly trust to do the laundry is my dear sister Susan. She alone understands. I laughed aloud when she warned me to avoid tendinitis while spotting the clothes with Tide and the toothbrush. I think she understands because we have the same mother. At least once a year I get the tearful phone call from my mom. She spilled bleach on her favorite new jeans. She accidentally got the red napkin in the load of whites. (Actually that was my college boyfriend, who worked at a restaurant with red napkins, he inevitably washed a newly dyed red napkin in every white load, turning all his socks and underwear pink. Not that I know this--about the underwear--first hand.) The point is that my mother flails at laundry.
In all fairness, she is a rebel from her own mother. These things skip a generation. "Mama (my grandma) washy better" was honestly one of my first sentences. Out of the mouths of babes. Mama was psycho too. She would only wash one "good" top in a load. Not green. Grandpa's farm clothes had a whole separate washing machine. She stood by the drier to make sure nothing got scorched. My socks were white when I stayed there. Underwear were washed in the linen delicate fabric wash from Dayton's. What is it called? I can smell it in my mind. I'm sure we distributed several cases when we cleaned out her house.
When my mom was here helping us after each of my babies was born, she did the laundry. Post-partum hormones mixed with someone else folding shirts into the wrong size and stuffing them into the drawer was a bad combination for me. After all these years we have come to a pretty comfortable arrangement. I truly appreciate everything my mother does for me, except the laundry.
Perhaps my being psycho about the laundry, how things are folded, which things are hung, what doesn't get dried. . . is really my way of trying to make something sacred out of something profane. Enjoy the ritual of taking care of your clothes. (The Beautiful Life, page 23. . . paste pictures of the beach above your washing machine to dream about while you carefully tri-fold your undies. . . see January blog)
Anything worth doing is worth doing right. That is what my dad would say. Then again he never did the laundry. My mom did. Maybe that is why she just "gets it done." Occasional casualties aside she does get it done.
Probably there is some elusive balance that I am missing. That's okay because I have many more weeks to get it right. I'm procrastinating folding while writing this. Actually I guess I'll pitch my tent for tonight, acclimate to the altitude, have some freeze-dried ice-cream and prepare to resume the climb tomorrow. Mount Laundry will always be there. Tonight I'm gonna practice some piano.
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