Are You a Lumper or a Separater?

Since most people can’t afford to buy new clothes everyday, laundry is a necessary chore.  Here at Mermaids Don’t Do Windows, the clothes, sheets, and towels do have to get washed.  Until a laundry fairy starts doing ours, somebody has to do it.

The Husband rarely does laundry.  I banned him for life shortly after we got married.  His idea of washing everything in hot water didn’t sit well with the few nice things that I owned at the time.  I’m sure it was his evil master plan to get out doing of laundry altogether.

Daughter 1 does most of her own laundry, but she can’t sort colors to save her life.  She puts bright colors in the whites all the time.  “I didn’t know which basket to put those in.”  Drives me crazy.  If I’m feeling generous, I’ll throw her clothes in with the rest, but she has to put them away.  It’s not my problem if she can’t find something or her clothes are dirty.  She is 14.

Daughter 2 is too short to reach the controls.  When she’s tall enough and/or pushes me over the edge about how her clothes are done, then she’ll be assimilated, too.  For now, she helps with simple tasks.

The other day, a friend asked me to choose between my washer or dryer.  She did not just ask me to choose which child to keep, did she?

I know that the appliances aren’t children, but don’t ask me to choose.  They get sold in matching sets for a reason.  The Maytags I have now are the first matching set I’ve ever owned.  When we got them several years ago, we called them the Rolls Royce and Bentley.  They even have luxury features (the sales guy sold them to my husband with promises of wrinkle release settings).  I’m not choosing between them.

Every once in a while, someone will complain about the wrinkles.  Wrinkles?  No, those are dryer laugh lines.  I’ve tried to get shirts out when damp and warm, but the wrinkle fairies live in the dryer (and they probably eat socks when they get hungry).  Wrinkle release spray is my only hope of defeating them until the laundry fairies arrive.  I thought that the wrinkle prevent setting on the Rolls Royce and wrinkle release settings on the Bentley were supposed eliminate my wrinkle problems.

What?  Use an iron?  *scoffs*  Mermaids don’t iron.  Heck, my iron is the same one I had in college.  It has my maiden name written on the bottom in permanent marker and black electrical tape on the cord where my roommate’s illegal pet rabbit chewed the cord.

Daughter 2 helped me change the sheets on her bed last week, and she noticed the wrinkles.  “Aren’t you going to iron those sheets?”  Who taught her that?!  How does she even know what an iron is at 6 years of age?  When she’s old enough and can figure out how to unfold the ironing board, she can iron her own sheets.

While I wait for that laundry fairy to take over the washing, drying, ironing, folding, and putting away chores and to save me from my wrinkly bad habits, here are my laundry demands for Daughter 1:

  • Sort the colors into the proper baskets:  Reds (including purples and oranges), whites and most unmentionables, jeans and dark colors, towels and sheets.
  • Don’t use fabric softener with the towels.
  • Don’t wash the kitchen dish towels with the other towels (I don’t know why I have a problem with this.  Just gross.)
  • If you complain about the way the laundry gets done, do it yourself.  You have clean clothes, so be grateful.

I’m a separater.  I can’t even lump the dogs’ bath towels with the family’s bath towels.

What are your laundry habits (good or bad)?  Do you have pet peeves about cleaning clothes?  Do you make your children do their own laundry or participate for the common good of the entire family?  Are you a lumper or a separater:  Do you throw everything into one load (who cares about the colors), or separate all loads by colors and types? I’d love to hear from you.

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