When I carry the very full laundry bins down to the basement I am bursting with hope for a productive day. This optimism is quickly diminished when I bump up against the walls of my house - which we got newly painted when we bought it, by the way - leaving scuff marks. Sometimes I also run into one of our kitchen barstools and, on very unlucky days, knock one over onto the floor. I don’t know why but barstools crashing to the floor due to impact with my unwieldy mountain of laundry causes me fountains of rage.
Gabriel never seems to have the socks he prefers when he is getting ready in the morning (if we are being honest, it would be more apt to say the only socks he will wear under any circumstances.) I feel eternally guilty about not getting the laundry done in a timely manner but I also know in no uncertain terms that no matter how many loads I completed He. Would. Still. Never. Have. The. Right. Goddamn. Socks. Because laundry is a task tainted by black magic and meant to deaden our souls.
An example of how I’m great at housework: Sometimes I get a load out of the dryer, fold it very neatly into piles for each member of my household, put it back into the basket to be put away carefully, and then - when I am searching frantically for a pair of Gabriel’s socks under extreme duress as our morning routine has gone so far off the rails we have jumped out the windows of the figurative train and landed deep in the figurative jungle, where angry, wild children are yelling about who ate the last waffle and I cannot find my coffee mug for the love of god (oh yeah here it is on the bathroom sink obviously) - I tear right through that basket of clean, all-ready-to-be-carefully-placed-in-drawers-by-me-your-loving-mom! laundry, throwing items onto our bed and the floor, ruining the neat stacks I’d worked so diligently to produce. And guess what? No socks. Sometimes I stuff in back in the basket, messy but at least contained. On other days, when I’m feeling less upbeat, I leave it where it lies. I leave it and I glare at it and eventually the dog comes in and makes it into a bed.
What a cute picture I snapped of my youngest child when she came in to cuddle this morning! Her blond hair all messy and golden in the morning sun! Her smile so genuine and her pajamas so snug! What’s that in the background? Is that a Godzilla-sized pile of dirty laundry, tumbling from the hamper onto the floor, complete with underwear right on top, very visible for all to behold? That’s right. It is.
Somebody doesn’t want me to wash his clothes because they might shrink a little if I don’t dry them just the right amount. But somehow a t-shirt belonging to this someone has sneaked into the pile I’m washing and I dried it super thoroughly and now I’m freaking out because I don’t know if it’s an important t-shirt or something so I’ll just slip it quietly back into his drawer. This person will remain nameless but I have been married to him for 14 years and this has been happening the entire time.
What a gorgeous Saturday! Too bad none of us have any clean clothes to wear because mom and dad were binge-watching “Succession” all week instead of taking care of their family by completing necessary domestic chores.
Please put “I’m behind on laundry” as the epitaph on my gravestone, but the font used needs to perfectly convey both a sense of martyrdom and all the daydreams I had as a teenager when I imagined what it would be like to be an adult.
A haiku:
Do I smell mildew?/Yes! Forgot to dry that load!/Fuck! Wash it again.