By Staff
In the past couple of weeks, I've found precious, little time to do the laundry. My husband can attest to that fact and my son is still waiting on his favorite shirt to get clean again.
In an effort to keep up with the laundry, I have been known to throw a load of dirty clothes into the washing machine while I'm cooking supper. But, most of the time I'd get busy with cooking, clearing the table and getting the dishes loaded into the dishwasher, that I'd forget to put the laundry into the dryer.
As the days pass and clothes are worn and taken off, the basket gets fuller and fuller. I thought by doing a load or two every day or so would keep me a step ahead, or at the very least, even with the dirty laundry. Not a chance.
Apparently for every pair of dirty socks in the basket, there are two pair hiding under the edge of the bed. For every wet towel thrown into the hamper, one additional towel appears. I guess the towels in the cabinet wanted to keep their dirty friends from feeling left out.
In the case of dirty laundry, at least at my house, finding a pair of clean underwear can sometimes be difficult.
In a criminal trial I covered for The Brewton Standard last year, the defendant reportedly had 32 pair of underwear in his dresser drawers. At the time I couldn't imagine why anyone would have so much underwear. Today, as the laundry basket continues to fill, I have a better understanding as to why it might not be a bad idea to have so many.
I realize that in years past, many people would only do laundry on Saturdays when they had the whole day to get the job done. Well, that's sure not going to happen at my house. Saturday's are filled with a little laundry work, cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping, bill paying, and my list goes on, and on, and on. What's so bad is that I do try to get the laundry done, but fail miserably. I put on a load of clothes to wash and get so busy doing other things; I forget I'd started the washer.
I've given this laundry thing a lot of thought and I'm even planning for the future.
With hurricane season quickly approaching, I'm making a plan. If I can allot three or four hours of any day for laundry alone, I plan to purchase an extra dozen pair of underwear for everyone in the family. A few extra pairs of shorts or pants and some extra shirts and socks. I'll wash everything that's dirty and get the new items washed and folded as well.
In the event of a hurricane and loss of power for the washer and dryer, my family will be set. Plenty of clean clothes, underwear and socks will be readily available for an extended period of time. That sounds like a good plan and I hope I can put it into action.
The only problem with that is when the power does come back on, I'll have even more laundry to do than ever before.
Laundry is one of those things that never, ever gets done completely. When you think about it, even if you have washed every article of clothing that has made it into the hamper and baskets around the house, the clothes you have on are dirty. Since I don't know anyone who does laundry in the nude, I can almost guarantee there will always be something dirty in the laundry basket.
Laundry is a vicious cycle. I have settled on the fact that the hampers in my house will always have an article or two in them that need to be run through the wash cycle. I've accepted my fate. I just hope the rest of my family can live with it too.
Lisa Tindell is news editor for The Brewton Standard. She may be reached by e-mail at lisa.tindell@brewtonstandard.com.