Laundry

I learned how to do laundry when I was in fifth grade when we lived in New York. I learned to do laundry from my mom in the wash room which was across the hall from my basement bedroom. My mother washes most things in cold water, even though most tags say to wash with warm. I remember learning to tell if you have added enough soap by the amount of foam. We sorted the clothes and washed and dried them. The clothes were folded on an ugly green flowered table, or often enough, on my parents' bed. I can remember trying so hard to make the towels and t-shirts and everything else that I folded as neat as my mom folded them. I never could. I always folded the towels differently then my mom. Now that I have my own towels at my own house, I fold them my way. I have always hated putting folded towels away.

For as long as I can remember my mom has used safety pins to keep socks together in the wash. Inevitably some socks would lose their mates and would go into the sock bag. When the plastic grocery bag was full to overflowing my family would have a "Sock Party" where all the socks would be spread out on the floor and we would play Memory, matching socks and pinning them together. Again, without fail, some socks would be on their own, forced yet again to reside in the sock bag next to the washer and the box of safety pins. After several years, these socks just disappeared. I assume my mom put them in the trash, but then again, they may have been eaten by the sock monster.

Safety pins were always showing up all over the house. Madeline, Claire, my dad, me ... anyone might carry their socks to any room in the house to don their shoes. And so, the pins were everywhere. My mom, as she went about the house, picking up and cleaning, would pin them to the bottom of her shirt so that she would remember to put them in the box next to the washer. Sometimes her shirts would go through the wash with them on and she would just wear the pins. I can remember pointing them out when we were at the grocery store or some such place. She would smile.

All through high school I did my own wash. It meant that if I didn't haven anything to wear, it was up to me. It also meant that my mom didn't have to come in my room to get my clothes. My room was my room, inspite of her insistance that it was her house and thus my room must be at least neat if not clean. Doing my own laundry did mean that I got in trouble for leaving my clothes in the washer too long, or for taking a load of towels out of the dryer without folding them so that I could dry my clothes.

In high school, my dad cut and labled some packing boxes with our names: Dad, Mom, Meggie, Madeline, Claire, Doug and placed them on shelves. To sort laundry all we had to do was throw the item in the correct box. Most of the time the item wasn't folded. Just the other day, I found my dad squashing my laundry box in the garage. They don't have room for the boxes in the new house. Even after I moved out for college my box stayed in the basement. It got used when I came home for Christmas and breaks though. Until I moved into the house I live in now, I came home to do laundry sometimes and anything that got left behind went in my box.