Today was designated laundry day. Designated by me at the sight of my last pair of socks this morning. Until I quit my job (i.e. secure income) I long ago relieved myself of the guilt I fostered for dropping off my laundry to have it done for me. It was my then-husband, actually, who convinced me. He did it without much effort. We took turns doing the laundry and every time it was his turn he would just go use a drop-off service, paying out of his own pocket and talking about opportunity costs, which I just called laziness, since he wasn’t really being productive in this so-called “lost time” of washing clothes. I, however, was always busy with something of actual relevance and dedicating three or four hours to this mind-numbing activity that just kept coming back at me - kinda like the dishes (which I hate, too) - seemed like motivation enough to consider a change of my modus operandi.
Unfortunately, with the removal of a steady salary comes the removal of certain luxuries and, so, after ten years, I find myself back in the struggle that is overcoming laundry day.
A friend suggested that my girls are now old enough to help with this task and that she taught her boys to operate a washing machine right around that time. My kids are nine and eleven years old. I agreed, without much reservation, to have her show them the ropes. They learned all about delicates, which I never do, as well as proper separation, which I don’t do either. For about two laundry days they were enthusiastic helpers but now it is just another chore I need to impose on them, accompanied by ultimatums, threats, and zero consequences for non-adherence to my rules. Once at the dinner table, my first daughter, then 9 years old, actually cynically commented on the fact that I can’t punish them. To a stern “Behave yourself or you will lose privileges!” she responded monotonously and unimpressed: “What is it that you’re going to take away exactly? You already don’t let us watch T.V., we can’t have a DSI or any game consoles, ..we’ve got nothing you can use for leverage.” This is when I decided to loosen my reigns a bit and now they’re iPad addicts like all the other kids in their respective schools. Unfortunately, I didn’t successfully carry out this strategy, for I neglected to enforce confiscation of said privileges as a means of parental leverage. Turns out, I’m as laissez-faire as my parents were.
The most frustrating part of doing the laundry is when the kids collect their neatly folded piles - because now it is me who is doing it all again (I’m stupid) - and then I later find these piles stuffed into all corners of their room because they couldn’t fit anything into their overstuffed, messy dresser drawers. All my hard work for nothing! Well, except that we have freshly washed clothes, which - by the way - they sometimes throw back into the hamper because they are too lazy to clean up their room properly (i.e. fold and find a place for clothes that have somehow ended up on the floor somewhere.).
I can’t wait until I have some sort of income again. Dropping off laundry is definitely on the top of my luxuries list.
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