Laundry, et al.

This is a not a picture of me doing my laundry, but it is definitely someone doing laundry the hard way. Which brings me to my point.

Everyone should have a resident laundry helper man, like I do. Not only does he help with laundry, he actually irons. So, I get major big brownie points when I manage to iron a few things. Really, I do most of the laundry in this place, but this past weekend, he took it upon himself to attack the mountain in the basement. He even took the empty detergent bottle to the grocery store so he would be sure to get the right kind. I know, I know. I am blessed.

Before I get to my main point, did you know there is a line of shoes called Chinese Laundry? I found that out when I googled that phrase. There are some beautiful shoes, but you're not going to catch me in shoes that are that tall.

So, as happens occasionally around here, one of our kids who will remain unnamed, but whose initials are E.R.T., was "cleaning" up his bedroom floor and came across some clothes. Without doing a lot of thinking, or perhaps any at all, he swooped them up and put them in the laundry chute. I figure his basic intuition said it would be best for someone else to have to deal with the clothes. Problem was, the clothes were freshly washed, and still folded. My laundry man noticed that there seemed to be some apparently clean, and folded clothes. He set them aside.

Tonight at dinner, he surprised us all with a demonstration of how he discovered the clean laundry, and wondered if maybe we just have a particularly conscientious kid who takes such good care of his clothes that even after he wears them, he folds them carefully before putting them into the laundry. His recommendation was that "whoever" these clothes belonged to should wear them before having them rewashed.

I loved his approach. My approach when that happens is to mutter bad words under my breath and add up all the ways I have been put upon today. It never even occurred to me to bring the pile of non-dirty clothes upstairs and have a little demonstration about them. I daresay his approach is probably more effective in the long run.

Now, I'm off to iron.

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