Domestic bliss

After speaking to a few co-workers, I’m feeling a bit sheepish about my blog post for today.

You see, today’s post is not nearly as weird and exciting as hunting down bridesmaids dresses in some teeny tiny stranger’s apartment in Northwest Washington like my friend over at www.cardigansandcouture.blogspot.com did this weekend. It all turned out well (the dresses are, of course, perfect and darling). But there is a random, oddly over-dressed mannequin in the background of a couple of the pictures she showed me today. Kinda creepy.

This post also isn’t going to live up to the weirdness experienced by another coworker who came home from a trip to find that her landlord (who is showing the apartment to potential new renters) had hidden or thrown away certain items, including her contact lense solution! WTF?? Who does that?

Anyway, as I said, nothing that fascinating happened to me this weekend (maybe because of my own personal effort at Carmageddon).

No, today rather, I’m about to bore you by talking about my other job. Because in addition to working a normal 40 hour week, and devoting a couple of hours a day to this awesome blog (you’re welcome), I have another job: laundry maven.

For two people and a cat, we create, in my opinion, an enormous amount of laundry. Now, don’t get all crazy. I know that people with kids create a butt-tonnage of laundry. That’s what makes this all so unbelievable. We don’t have kids and yet, I do laundry pretty much every day.

As it stands, I probably do a load of laundry every single day. And that’s just to keep up. There are usually a couple of loads on the weekend as well. Please keep in mind that most of our work items (suits, jackets, dresses, my blouses) goes to the drycleaners. Which my manservant-for-life XFE takes care of. Along with pretty much all the other household responsibilities. My only responsibility, for the most part, is the laundry.

I was recently speaking with someone with two growing girls who informed me that they do laundry once a week, and it involves about four-to-five loads. This boggled my mind. I can’t even comprehend how that is possible. I actually blurted out, “do you have an industrial machine?”

Lemme walk you through a day of dressing at Chez Poe. There’s the workout gear for me and XFE. That’s really what contributes to the load of the day. Because, believe me, with my high stench factor, you do not want those sweaty workout clothes lying around. And at times, I’ve even been known to run in the morning and strength train in the evening, which means, double the stinky clothes.

Then there’s the work wear. As I said, most of that goes to the drycleaners, except XFE’s shirts. He doesn’t like the way they do collars at traditional drycleaners, so I wash and iron those, which is one of the weekend loads.

After work, there’s the hanging-around-the-house, doing-chores wear, mostly shorts and t-shirts, but since they’re worn while doing chores (washing the car, gardening, cleaning the grill), they get pretty dirty. If they’re just straight hanging-around-the-house clothes, they might get a couple of wears. And since I get cold if the household temperature drops below 80 (which it frequently does), I layer up. Creating more laundry.

Then there are the clothes for running around doing errands or meeting up with friends. These are cuter than the shorts and t-shirt combos mentioned about. And they also pile up in the hamper. Some weeks, there’s going out clothes, like for dinner or some other event.

Finally, the last costume change of the day is pajamas. Again, these are different from the hanging-around-the-house clothes, obviously. Then, there are all the various undergarments, which include tons of undershirts for XFE and camisoles or tank tops for me.

When you add in towels (including gym towels) and sheets, you get to a laundry load every day. Or at least, we do.

Oh, and don’t think for a minute that Petunia Potpie doesn’t contribute to the workload. Thanks to her profuse shedding, we cover a couple of pieces of furniture with sheets that we can toss into the laundry every once in a while. She also likes to sleep on the guest bed, which has a nice dark comforter that shows her cat hair quite nicely.

Then there’s the folding and putting away. I’m kinda obsessive about that. I do not have clean clothes “piles” lying around anywhere. We have one laundry basket and it’s always empty.

Don’t get me wrong, I am super grateful that we have a washing machine and dryer in our house. If I had to lug all that laundry around, I would probably start throwing stuff away. It would just disappear.

Growing up, we had to go to the laundry mat, which is an entire subculture in and of itself, with its own regulars’ hierarchy. I have seen grown women fight over a “good” washing machine, or a rolling cart where all the wheels actually work. So, at least we have that going for us.   

Annnnd, there you go. 800 words on laundry. Better go put a load in.