When I found myself alone after a number of years, I had to learn a whole new set of skills. I had always looked after the household maintenance chores…painting, repairing, wiring, lawn maintenance etc., but had no idea about the other chores like cooking, cleaning and laundering. I hope that this article will help with one of these, namely, laundering.
All of my life I would take clothes out of my bureau, or my closet. I would put them on and wear them, and they often got sweaty and dirty. When this happened, I would toss them in a hamper in the hall. Once a week, they would magically re-appear in my closet and bureau…clean and pressed. All set for me to get them dirty all over again.
Somehow I didn’t associate these re-appearing clean clothes with my mother, and later, my wife.
So when I found myself alone, the bureau and closet empty, and the hamper in the hall overflowing (and that area of the hall starting to get a distinct odor), I decided that I had to take the bull by the horns and do some laundry.
I discovered that there is a plethora of information from a million sources in internet-land that try to help you. Everybody and his mother have ideas. Talk about information overload.
So I decided to do it my way, and, after some simple refinements, discovered that this is the way to do laundry the quickest and easiest.
First of all…get out all the shirts and pants that need to be pressed or dry-cleaned and give them away to the needy. True Men Don’t Do Ironing and it’s a pain having to go to the dry-cleaners. Instead, buy a new wardrobe of shirts and slacks that are perma-press. So when they come out of the dryer, they are ready to wear…wrinkle-free and looking good. Casual is IN. You can pay for them from the money you saved by not using the dry-cleaner.
You are going to want to wash the clothes that you are wearing along with the other soiled clothes in the hamper. When you strip down, you might as well take a shower (you’re naked anyway), and when you get out of the shower you’re going to want to step onto a clean floor mat, so you are going to want to wash the bathroom floor-mat, and the toilet mat first. If you have a mat by the sauna or hot-tub, you might as well do them at the same time. Turn the heat up because you are going to be naked for awhile. I’ll explain later.
I know that you don’t need instructions on how to use the washer or dryer, because you’re a man and men are good with mechanical things. Just a word of caution…don’t put in extra soap thinking that it will do a better job. It doesn’t. Not only are you wasting money, but you might have a mess to clean before you take your shower. And you don’t need to add softener, unless you plan to lie on the mat on the bathroom floor. More money saved.
When the mats finish washing, put them in the dryer. Most mats have a rubber back that might melt if it gets too hot, so set the dryer on perma-press and let it get ‘just dry’. When they are done, bring them, along with a couple of empty baskets, back to the bathroom and/or sauna/hot-tub area.
Put the mats back on the bathroom floor, pick up any towels and washcloths in there and toss them in the hamper. Strip off your clothes and put them in there also.
Sorting the clothes is easy.
If it’s white, or close to it, put it in one hamper. Put everything else in the other hamper.
Put the white stuff in the first load (if you have a lot of whites, divide in half and do 2 white loads). Remember what happened when you used too much soap, so act accordingly. This time, you are going to want to add some liquid softener. Make those towels nice and fluffy.
Don’t have your shower yet, because the washer will use the hot water intermittently, and you’ll freeze your **s. Wait until after the last washer load is done and in the dryer. Shower while the last load is in the dryer, unless, of course, you just have a small hot water tank and there isn’t any hot water anymore. If that’s the case, get out your hardware store catalogue and look up the price of a new, larger hot water tank while you are sitting there in the nude waiting for the water to heat back up.
When you put the clothes in the dryer, put in 2 or 3 of those ‘dryer balls’ that you can get cheap at the dollar store. They make lots of noise, so you know the dryer is on and working, and your towels fluff up beautifully. And don’t forget to toss in a couple of those scented sheets. The ladies love the way they make the towels smell, and you’ll score lots of points if you can entice a lady into the shower (after you’ve replaced the hot water tank, of course).
Dump the clothes from the dryer onto the bed to sort and put away. No problem with the perma press stuff…it looks so good it almost hangs itself.
Roll the underwear into a ball and put in a drawer side by side. They probably are different colors anyway, and this makes it easy to pick out the black ones to put on after you’ve had your shower with the lady.
A really kool way to fold tee shirts is this. Lay it down face up and neck to the right, on the bed. With your right hand, pinch the tee on the shoulder seam, half way between the neck and the sleeve. Eyeball an imaginary line from this point down the tee to the bottom hem. With your left hand, pinch the tee about half way down this line. Then, keeping the tee pinched, cross your right hand UNDER your left hand and pinch the tee at the bottom hem at the imaginary line. Uncross your arms, shake it a little, and the tee will fold itself. Pretty kool, eh?
Put your tees in the drawer, neatly folded.
Socks go side by side in another drawer, rolled into a ball and tucked together. You know what I mean. That way, you can instantly see which socks are which, so you won’t make the mistake of grabbing the top pair and finding that you are not color co-ordinated. That’s NOT kool!
The water should be hot enough now to at least get a WARM shower, and you’ve earned it.
By the way…don’t forget to re-adjust the heat.
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