Chores I deplores

I hate doing laundry. Absolutely hate it. There's the sorting and the piles and the going back multiple times to change loads out and put new loads in and then there is the folding of the dry laundry and the putting of the laundry away... I really hate it. Yes, in normal life I'd only have to wash my clothes once a week. And in the lovely life I used to have, my husband did the laundry for me. I would fold and put away, but then he helped me with the dishes... sort of.

Well, now things have changed. We live with roommates which means no using the timer to start the laundry an hour before the husband comes home. I've got to get the laundry done and I've got to get it done before people come home and want to do their laundry, or worse, take up the space on the drying rack.

Originally I had been banned from the machine for a certain pink incident but now I have to do the laundry if we ever want clean clothes. This is difficult for my husband to grasp. He says things like, well, just take the load out and I'll sort it before bed. Yes, I say, meaning that we'd get one load done in a day, and there would be no room on the line for our clothes now that everyone else has also done their laundry. Do you want clean underwear or not?

I finally got sick of the whole thing and started doing my own laundry. No one died and I think the DB is starting to relent. He's not nearly so upset about my accidently drying his black shirts as he was 5 years ago. I think he's starting to learn that if your black shirt gets accidently machine dried twice in 5 years, it is not worth your marriage to make a big deal out of it.

Of course my relationship to clothes is: if you can't take the heat, you don't belong in the closet. I don't read most of the tags in my clothes. Though often I will if I am debating buying something. Dry clean only gets returned to the shelf unless I really love it or I think it can handle the wash. I separate into darks (cold water wash), whites and underwear (hot water wash), and colors (everything else in a warm water wash). I sort by what the article looks like (color) and ignore it's pleas regarding fabric and wash-inside-out-ness. Yes, I have in fact put wool in the dryer. Once. So's my husband ("how was I supposed to know it was wool" because I call it my wool knit hat perhaps? Eh, it survived. I'll probably dry it myself someday), you wanna make something of it?

I am slowly learning the little signs they put on labels. The X over the box with the circle in it, that might represent a dryer to those who are into symbology, means don't dry. I think. Items that have this symbol are not going into the dryer.

There is a website for all this. http://www.textileaffairs.com/lguide.htm

But I can't remember all that and I am not taking my computer into the bathroom. Maybe I'll print it out for myself.

This does not solve the other problem. The washing machine is Danish. It doesn't use these symbols. It has words like "Kort" and "stortskraeling" or something. It also uses Celsius rather than Fahrenheit and has no such thing as Permanent Press. Not that I know what Permanent Press is, but I know it is very good to wash everything on this cycle and dry everything with this cycle. It is the best cycle.

But at least I'm getting clean clothes again. Clothes that are dried the civilized way, in a tumble dryer. Even if they shouldn't be tumble dried. The husband will also be getting his clothes cleaned. And if he's lucky, his black shirts will not accidently end up in the dryer, but on a line.

In return I've asked him to wash the dishes if I've cooked. Because he's getting out of all the chores these days and it's a bit unfair.