Whittling Away with Dick Brooks - Washing and Drying

The Queen was in the cellar, her domain because there in dwells the two items of power equipment that she has complete control of, the washer and the dryer.  The flapping sounds told me that she was folding the clothes that she had removed from the dryer.  I haven’t been formally banned from operating either of these machines but some rather heavy sighs and one or two stern looks from my partner of over forty years told me better than words that they were off limits.  The machines themselves are not the problem, their dials are easily read and function well.  The problem lies mostly with me.  Having been born male, I tend to have a more simplified view of life than my spouse.  You have clothes, they get dirty, you wash them.  I do not nor do I really want to understand all the finer points of laundry.  Clothes are made of cloth, washing machines wash cloth, dryers dry wet cloth, no problem!  You take the dirty clothes hamper to the cellar, push as many dirty clothes into the machine as you can and toss in a measure of soap stuff and turn it on.  The Queen has some kind of a Dewey Decimal system involving dividing the dirty clothes into separate colors and fabrics.  The piles are then washed for different amounts of time using different water temperatures.  When the washing is done, the wet clothes are sorted again, some going on hangers, some into the dryer.  Our clothes always look nice and smell good when she does the laundry so I have surrendered doing that task to her.  My system did have a few hiccups.  I did wash and dry one of her wool sweaters once but it looked nice on our daughter’s Cabbage Patch doll so it wasn’t a complete disaster.  Then there was the time that I washed my underwear with a new red shirt and had some rather shocking pink jockey shorts come out of the machine.  That wasn’t so bad, being a senior and wearing my pants at the proper level, they weren’t available to the general public for viewing although opening my underwear drawer was kind of shocking for months after.  

The Queen came up the cellar stairs carrying two of my shirts on hangers and asked me to take them upstairs and put them in the closet.  A simple task but my closet is packed, there I made room for the shirts after a great deal of pushing and perspiring.  I almost never throw anything away.  I could donate them but by the time I’m willing to part with them, nobody else would want them.  I was going through my sock drawer a couple of days ago trying to find two socks that matched when what to my wondering eyes should appear than the pair of game socks I had worn in my last college soccer game.  I admit to swiping them as a reminder of my athletic career since a pair of maroon and white striped knee high socks aren’t really much of a fashion statement.  That game was 65 years ago.  Maybe it’s time to sort through my closet and weed out some of the clothes that I haven’t worn for years, yep, next rainy day everything before Nixon was president goes!  I feel more organized already.

Thought for the week—The trouble with bucket seats is that not everybody has the same size bucket.

Until next week, may you and yours be happy and well.

Whittle12124@yahoo.com