My mother does our laundry. I'm not jumping for joy about it. It comes at a high price. I'll admit, I like to save my laundry up and do it all on the weekend. By Saturday, you could stand on one of the piles and change a high-hanging light bulb with ease. The sight of this makes my mother's blood boil. The process of her doing our laundry goes in phases:
The Allegations of Neglect Phase
My mom likes to tie the situation that my laundry is in to how well I care for my children. "You are neglecting their basic needs!" she says as she sorts delicate tu-tu's from the bleachable tighty-whities. As she sorts the piles, she says things like "No wonder Milena looks like an orphan half the time! She has all these cute clothes to wear and they're all dirty!" (Side note: Milena looks like an orphan, because she looks like an orphan. The cleanest of clothes won't change that.)
The Martyr Phase
My mom likes to talk loudly while she is being "forced" to do my laundry. She likes for everyone to hear what she has to go through down in that basement. If you shut the basement door, to drown her out, she comes back up to open it. She yells upstairs asking why I didn't use Shout on this cranberry juice stain and who put the jeans in the whites pile. She also likes to talk about all the other things she has to do besides spending her time on this laundry. She uses phrases like "the least you could do" and "I'm old" trying to elicit a response.
The Furious Ironing Phase
The Furious Ironing Phase is actually quite funny to watch. We use our iron about two times a year. The other times, it is put away on a closet shelf, in a cabinet, or under a bed. The ironing board really gets the shaft. If we do have to iron, we will just lay a towel on the kitchen counter. This also causes my mom to give us a good lashing. She retreats to the Martyr Phase for a bit, while she feverishly searches for the misplaced iron and its counterpart.
She irons everything. She irons the spaces inside the letters on shirts with appliques. She irons pillow cases. She irons towels. She even irons socks. When she is finished with the ironing, she hangs it...everywhere. On bed posts, from chandeliers, from the tops of doorways. It looks like a high-end thrift shop without price tags. She uses enough starch that hangers are no longer necessary-the clothes could stand on their own. The angrier she gets while she irons, the more starch comes pumping out of that nozzle.
The Dictator Phase
Watching my mom do laundry is exhausting; answering all the questions, defending my ability to parent, hunting for Woolite because "you can't wash that without Woolite! Are you an idiot?". I really don't have much energy left to put away the stacks and hangers-full of clothes. Enter the Dictator Phase. When no one moves to put the clean laundry away immediately, she begins to stack it around us. If we are on the couch, she sits it in piles on either side of us, in front of us, behind us, even on top of the remote. Here begins the process of her telling us how to put it away. In between loads, she has gone through our drawers and "rolled" our tshirts, logo side up, in the drawer. She wants them put away the same way. She likes to supervise this process. With a critical tone, she tells me I need to put the nicer shirts on top. She decides what "nicer" means.
We decided that enough's enough. We are going to rise up against Grammy and her tyranny. Clean clothes aren't worth it. Then I read a text my son sent to her. It said "I miss having clean laundry".
The Allegations of Neglect Phase
My mom likes to tie the situation that my laundry is in to how well I care for my children. "You are neglecting their basic needs!" she says as she sorts delicate tu-tu's from the bleachable tighty-whities. As she sorts the piles, she says things like "No wonder Milena looks like an orphan half the time! She has all these cute clothes to wear and they're all dirty!" (Side note: Milena looks like an orphan, because she looks like an orphan. The cleanest of clothes won't change that.)
The Martyr Phase
My mom likes to talk loudly while she is being "forced" to do my laundry. She likes for everyone to hear what she has to go through down in that basement. If you shut the basement door, to drown her out, she comes back up to open it. She yells upstairs asking why I didn't use Shout on this cranberry juice stain and who put the jeans in the whites pile. She also likes to talk about all the other things she has to do besides spending her time on this laundry. She uses phrases like "the least you could do" and "I'm old" trying to elicit a response.
The Furious Ironing Phase
The Furious Ironing Phase is actually quite funny to watch. We use our iron about two times a year. The other times, it is put away on a closet shelf, in a cabinet, or under a bed. The ironing board really gets the shaft. If we do have to iron, we will just lay a towel on the kitchen counter. This also causes my mom to give us a good lashing. She retreats to the Martyr Phase for a bit, while she feverishly searches for the misplaced iron and its counterpart.
She irons everything. She irons the spaces inside the letters on shirts with appliques. She irons pillow cases. She irons towels. She even irons socks. When she is finished with the ironing, she hangs it...everywhere. On bed posts, from chandeliers, from the tops of doorways. It looks like a high-end thrift shop without price tags. She uses enough starch that hangers are no longer necessary-the clothes could stand on their own. The angrier she gets while she irons, the more starch comes pumping out of that nozzle.
The Dictator Phase
Watching my mom do laundry is exhausting; answering all the questions, defending my ability to parent, hunting for Woolite because "you can't wash that without Woolite! Are you an idiot?". I really don't have much energy left to put away the stacks and hangers-full of clothes. Enter the Dictator Phase. When no one moves to put the clean laundry away immediately, she begins to stack it around us. If we are on the couch, she sits it in piles on either side of us, in front of us, behind us, even on top of the remote. Here begins the process of her telling us how to put it away. In between loads, she has gone through our drawers and "rolled" our tshirts, logo side up, in the drawer. She wants them put away the same way. She likes to supervise this process. With a critical tone, she tells me I need to put the nicer shirts on top. She decides what "nicer" means.
We decided that enough's enough. We are going to rise up against Grammy and her tyranny. Clean clothes aren't worth it. Then I read a text my son sent to her. It said "I miss having clean laundry".
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