Old School Laundry
Laundry piles up around here. And on days when the temperatures soar into the triple digits, I avoid doing it. I dunno, having the washer and dryer in the dead center of my home makes me leery of adding any additional heat to the mix.
I often wonder what sort of whack feng shui we've got going on. I keep meaning to remedy it somehow. I mean, with the aid of some book I bought a long time ago and have since misplaced, I figured out that maybe my husband's job woes when we moved up here 8 years ago stemmed from the fact that his head was directly aligned with the toilet. We moved the bed, he got a new job.
Weird, huh?
So, maybe having my whirring, sloshing laundry facilities directly behind my office and in the very center of my home is putting off weird chi. I don't know. If I find the book, I'll figure it out.
Back to the point of the story
So yes, laundry is piling up, and it has been hot, and I didn't do it, and it piled up more and then we got a break in the weather. Normal temps! I can wash and dry!
I toss in a load of clothes. All is well.
I switch them to the dryer, and start a load of all of my husband's work clothes. Like, ALL of his dress shirts and pants. You see where I'm going with this, don't you?
But wait, let me back up. See, in my brilliant mind, since the laundry never seems to be done in the right order (ie, I get on a bender with the bedding and we're out of towels, or I wash every stitch of kids clothing and my husband's stuck wearing an old Hard Rock Cafe shirt under a dark colored dress shirt because his undershirts are in a hamper.
Yeah. So! I decide - we've got 5 family members. And there are 7 days in the week. Ergo - stay with me now - I can do one (or two) loads of laundry a day - and assign each family member their own day. They are responsible for their own laundry making it into the hamper. They can't hit the hamper, they don't have clean clothes. It's genius!
So - I threw all of my husband's clothes into the washer and fired it up. I switched it to the dryer, and checked back in about 30 minutes into the dry time, because I like to hang up the shirts while they still have a little damp to them. Just a tiny bit.
I pulled out the first shirt. There are purple streaks of some sort of ink on the shirt. Oh no.
I pulled out the next shirt. Purple streaks.
One by one, all 15 shirts and three pairs of pants. Purple streaks.
AAARGH.
On the verge of hysteria, and spewing some choice words at the universe, I grabbed a cup full of detergent and a tooth brush and began to laboriously scrub liquid Tide into the purple streaky parts of each item. The air around me turned blue and smoky, such was the cussing. My husband, scandalized, took the kids on a bike ride, while I worked my way through 15 shirts and three pairs of pants, one square inch at a time.
Firing up the soak cycle, I dumped the whole mess back in, and added three times the legal limit of detergent. And then I did a little rain dance. And had a shot of whiskey.
After three agitation cycles, and five hours of soaking, I crossed my fingers and set the machine to wash.
It started churning and I continued my feverish hoping that it would work.
The machine spun to a stop after two rinse cycles, and I yanked one of the shirts out. No purple!
I removed another. No purple!
Another. NO PURPLE!
Dude! I fixed it!
To this moment, I can't tell you what it was that stained the clothes. I searched high and low for a pen, a crayon, something. And there wasn't a damn thing.
Perhaps that pathetic goldfish we have in the kitchen has offset the bad feng shui of the laundry. I don't know, but I couldn't be more pleased at not having to replace all those shirts.
Comments
Musta been the rain dance that fixed it. Or the shot of whiskey. I'll have to try those the next time I'm in the same boat.
Posted by: Jane | June 24, 2008 5:56 AM
Hilarious post! Glad the shirts came clean. I have experienced that same "panic" before when pulling clothes out of the washer. We have our own laundry issues here...don't get me started! I never thought I would post so much about such a menial task. Anyway, have a great day!
Posted by: Bronie | June 24, 2008 7:35 AM
The first thought that I had was to do laundry at night. Say, the second time you tell the kids it is bed time. Never explain, just always put a load in when you go to bed, and dryer when you get up. If the kids don't get to sleep when first told, get in another load in the evening.
I spent 7 years in the Navy. On the USS Saratoga I slept in the space underneath the arresting gear - hydraulic systems that stop 10 ton planes hitting the deck at 140 plus miles an hour, in about 100 feet or less. Skreeh! The kids will get used to any soothing laundry noise. Just don't explain the new rule - but be consistent.
Good save with the purple streaks!
Posted by: Brad K. | June 24, 2008 8:10 AM
Congrats on the clothing rescue!
We have assigned laundry days for our 4 oldest - it really helps to tame the laundry monster and to even out the loads to 3 loads a day or so.
Yeah, 3. As in, 24 loads a week. Did you know that, when they figure the washer's life expectancy to be 12-15 years, they are basing that figure on an estimate of 8 loads a week? So my one-year-old washer is now 3 years old, in dog years or whatever.
Posted by: suburbancorrespondent | June 24, 2008 10:04 AM
Scary.. my daughter who had seven children now only four live at home..she's 42 this August had every nightmare you could think of with laundry..even scratching her dryer drum when her son put laundry with tar on his clothes in the machine. She had to scratch off the painted surface..the machine was brand new and I had bought them.. oh crape I thought what can we do but move one. I still help with laundry when I visit, its really never caught up..
Dorothy from grammology
remember to call your gram
grammology.com
Posted by: Dorothy Stahlnecker | June 24, 2008 1:28 PM
I have yet to have a laundry disaster that was fixable. You have given me new hope that they exist.
Posted by: Bethiclaus | June 24, 2008 4:14 PM
The same thing happened to me last week, except with the color red. it only happened to a couple of my husband t-shirts though and I was too lazy to try to get the stains out. I never did figure out what caused the red streaks.
Maybe I need to rearrange my furniture.
Posted by: Mama Ginger Tree | June 24, 2008 8:21 PM
You're a better wife than me. I would have probably said, "those weren't there before?" or "it's the new style and you like to be fashionable" or "this is why you should do your own laundry".
Posted by: Catherine | June 24, 2008 9:30 PM
Maybe it's sad, but I'm always impressed when someone can actually *do* laundry. My method of dealing with things like that is to go ahead and dry it, return it to the dirty laundry basket, and wash it again later. Never works.
Posted by: Lynnie | June 25, 2008 12:20 AM
Yeah, it was definitely the whiskey that got it out.
Kudos on the laundry victory!
Years ago, I used to get blue spots on clothes all the time. Never did figure out what it was. Thought perhaps it was the liquid fabric softener, but never was sure.
Posted by: Dawn | June 25, 2008 8:42 PM
I feel your pain. My oldest son's new hobby is making tiny bow and arrows out of ink pens. He left one of the "arrows" in his pocket and ink stained an entire load of laundry. I was NOT as successful as you. ugh.
Posted by: Tammy | June 26, 2008 6:56 AM
Hi Jenny-
This was too funny! I've had the same thing happen with our laundry.
You stopped by my blog yesterday and asked me to leave a comment regarding my latest post at blogher.com. Well, I've tried, but I can't get a password for some reason. Maybe I'm showing my age?? Anyway-feel free to either: steal my idea for solving the bedwetting problem, or direct people to my blog, or tell me how to go about getting a password. :-)
Thanks for leaving a comment, btw!
jan
Posted by: jan | June 26, 2008 7:01 AM
The laundry room is next to my office too but I like the homey hum of it to tell you the truth. I am strict about clothes and how they go into the wash - white, lights, mediums, darks, towels and sheets. Okay, maybe I play fast and loose with this rule sometimes but that's my goal. When our drier was going down for the count there were just big loads all thrown together and hours of loud thumping for the laundry room.
Posted by: Suburban Island | June 29, 2008 1:41 PM
I hate laundry. It is my nemesis. I don't think in the 16 years of marriage, I have ever been completely caught up. My dream is to one day be like the tv moms who never have a laundry pile in their basement.
The next house had better have laundry on the main floor or even better upstairs were all the dirty clothes are!
I'm glad your laundry problem was solved.
Posted by: Morahmommy | July 1, 2008 11:56 AM
Oh my... I had a similar thing happen a few weeks ago and am not sure that I have EVER felt such a deep pit in my stomach as I did when I pulled my husbands brand new shirts out of the washer with bright red in all the wrong places. It was horrible. Plenty of research on google, and ask.com, then plenty of hydrogen peroxide, oxyclean and tons of laundry detergent and it all came out. Fewsh.... :)
Posted by: Jen | July 1, 2008 5:47 PM