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Sunday, November 5, 2017

Guerilla Warfare: Laundry Style

I've done a lot of laundry in my life.  Let me pause a moment here to clarify.  When I say "a lot of laundry," I do not mean we fill up the laundry baskets each week.  I do not mean more than three loads a week.  I mean a minimum of three loads A DAY.  Every day, all week long, every week of every month.  And by "load" I mean in my high capacity, "can do fourteen bath towels at a time" washing machine.  I mean piles of towels larger than a small recliner.  I mean mountains of sleeping bags and blankets used as sleeping bags.  Apparently while camping in mud pits.  I mean masses of dirty sports gear that defies the limits of my maximum high capacity washer and dryer.  It.  Never.  Ends.


I have a profound and new respect and reverence for anyone who toiled over laundry before automatic washers and dryers.  I cannot imagine doing laundry before electricity.  Of course, people had fewer clothes back then and didn't seem to need the quantity of stuff we need today.  I think a large aspect of this was the laundry.  I know I would be one of the moms speaking up with, "Yes, that lovely duvet is a stunning match to the new wallpaper.  Do I have to wash it?  Then it's a NOPE.  I'll keep the old quilt thanks."  And "Yes darling, that silk dress is just as cute as it could be.  Do I have to wash it?  Then nope.  You can make due with the two dresses you already have. Do.  Not.  Get.  Them.  Dirty."  I would definitely be one of those moms who let their kids run around mostly naked all the time, as long as it meant I didn't have wash more clothes.  White Trash R Us.

This is the millennium-long guerrilla siege that has been battled on the actual home front ever since the first caveman made his first loin cloth out of his most recent kill.  He proudly held up the pelt, holding it around his waist, admiring himself in the reflection of the nearby cave pool.  His cave wife looked up from her efforts to make the first DIY dishware and sighed.  "No wear pelt in rain.  It get dirty.  Me no wanna wash."

And thus the shot heard round the world rang out.

The Guerrilla Laundry War.

Because I'm sometimes slow on the uptake, I only recently figured out I've been fighting this battle for the better part of thirty years.  I took up the post from my mother, who waged a pretty decent campaign until being overwhelmed by the siege of five daughters who changed their outfits three times a day and then whined when their mother didn't wash each of their precious sweaters by hand in Woolite.  I would have given up too.

I have to admit I threw the first serious grenade in my mother's direction.  At the age of nine months, nonetheless.  I'll give you the abridged version: baby who can walk, minor surgery, antibiotics (and all the attendant intestinal side effects of full-power 1970's penicillin), and doctor who says keep the diapers off until the stitches heal.  And thus we had my parent's first major purchase: a washing machine.

And she fought the good fight until the huddled masses, well more like 1980's lip-glossed hair-sprayed estrogen-rampant masses, simply overwhelmed her.  She won eventually, by dint of attrition (we all moved out).  But it was a long, ugly war.  And it's a guerrilla war, not a full-frontal, regulation attack.  It is sneaky and treacherous and disloyal.  It tricks and deceives you.  It does not fight fair.  And I continue the battle on the same field as my mother and as her mother before her, with slightly better weapons on my side.  I have, as mentioned above, a high-efficiency/high capacity washer and dryer.  I have detergents crafted with the same ultra R &D as plutonium bombs (after all, laundry detergent is more profitable than bombs).  I have spot removers and bleaches and modern, stain-resistant fabrics.  But the enemy's weapons are just as horrible as they ever have been.

The Enemy's Artillery Catalog

The Sock Ball of Death.  There aren't many things that make me shudder on sight.  The Sock Ball of Death does it every time.  Its rolled up, twisted appearance hides the crawling bacteria inside.  It's not just a crumpled sock, it's a sock that has been folded and scrunched down while wet with mud, sweat, and standing field water, then left at the bottom of a laundry hamper or behind a couch or under a bed until it's crunchy and stiff.  And you know, with one glance, that you cannot shake it lose.  You will have to reach your hand in and pull it free.  "Just throw it away!" I hear you scream in horror.  But this is one of the special athletic socks the coach said was REQUIRED and cost more than your last lunch at Panera.  You must resuscitate this sock.  You have to touch that sock to save it.   There is no other way.  That's the kind of dirty pool the enemy plays.  But this is why God gave us rubber gloves.  You snatch one from the nearby box and smile your confident victory smile.  Nice try, Enemy Guerrillas, but we are tougher than the Sock Ball of Death.

The Mystery Pocket.  You pick up the jeans.  They are heavier than they should be.  They're only a child's size ten after all.  They should only weigh a pound or so.  The weight is uneven and the jeans hang oddly.  A slow, dawning horror comes upon you.  Something is in the pocket.  You gulp and feel the sweat start to bead on your upper lip.  The spreading fear and apprehension is making you slightly nauseous.  You do not want to reach into that pocket because you've fought this battle once too often.  ANYTHING could be in the Mystery Pocket.  You turn the jeans upside down and shake.  Two rocks, a frayed and half-chewed lollipop stick, a bent paper clip, and a little plastic army dude from Risk fall out.  You let out a shaky breath.  Relief comes for a moment.  Then you see that the pocket is not empty yet.  There is more to remove.  More that is . . . stuck.  Slowly, you pull the edges of the pocket apart and peer in with one eye.  It won't fully open, though.  This is not a good sign.  You pull harder and see strings of something sticky stretch as you pull the fabric.  The enemy has deployed a serious bomb.  Chewed gum.  A bit of pencil eraser, three small Legos, and . . . Holy Farting Goats that's a dead frog . . .  are stuck in the gum.  But, and you take a moment to find the lemonade here, you caught it BEFORE the dryer.  Those jeans cost $25 (and that was on sale) after all.  Dead frog or not, you can save the jeans.  You are a veteran soldier in the Laundry Wars, after all.

The Mustard Gas of Laundry: Crayons/Pens.  There outta be a law.  If you sell crayons or ink pens, you should be required to include a tiny robot in each package that seeks out and retrieves any and all writing implements of said package.  Like the horror that is a mustard gas bomb, a single crayon can seep into your entire load of laundry and ruin every single item silently and completely.  The mounting anguish and anger that fills your soul as you lift a sock out of the dryer and notice a tiny smear of green where it shouldn't be builds to dread as you pull out a second piece, one of your husband's dress shirts, which also has an odd but vibrant swirl of bright green across the shoulder.  You beg and plead with the universe as you pull out one piece after another that maybe just a few articles of clothing, even just one, might have been spared by the Crayon Bomb.  In the end, you review the casualites: 93% mortality.  One sock was spared, and two hand towels received only minor wounds that can be ignored because they can go in the cleaning bin.  It's a heavy blow.  The enemy won this battle. Nevertheless, you know you will come back to fight another day.

And so, to all my fellow Guerrilla Laundry War Veterans I say, fight on!  Fight dirty . . . er . . . Clean but Unfair!  PE clothes that sat in the locker all year without a single wash?  Throw them away!  Walmart sells gym shorts for $3, you don't need that sort of nonsense in your life!  Gum chewed into the sash of your daughter's favorite princess dress that WILL cause a full mental breakdown if it isn't salvaged?  Peanut butter is your friend!  Or shorten the sash!  And ban chewing gum until she's twelve.  Full battle scene drawn with a ball point pen all over your son's white church shirt?  And done deliberately because he hates anything with a collar that buttons up?  Hairspray and then bleach will show both your son and the pen who is really in charge.  Such weak skirmishes don't even warrant your wrath.

And when all is said and done at the end of the day, remember this: one day there will be grandchildren who take up the enemy's cause and use these same weapons upon your combatants.  Karma will always be your friend. Victory WILL be yours!