Time to Wash the Laundry

Do you remember that old Dunkin Donuts commercial featuring the weary baker who got up well before the crack of dawn to go to work? He’d robotically go through the motions day in and day out, saying over and over in the most monotonous of monotonous voices, “Got to make the donuts.”

Now why this was an effective advertising gimmick, I don’t know or remember. Come on in, our employees are unenthusiastic and exhausted at work. It gives our donuts (which personally I think should be spelled doughnuts again) that extra not-so-secret delicious flavor of apathy mixed with a soupcon of fatigue. Yum!

By now, you are probably wondering why I am going on and on about the doughnut guy and this is the reason. I am the doughnut guy and have been for the last few days, the only difference being that, instead of putting in long hours making big fat arse creating pastries, I am folding mountains, or at least foothills of laundry.

How it got so bad I don’t know; well, actually I do. A laundry monster lived in Jessica’s closet. Every time he heard wind of me asking Jessica to do her laundry, he gobbled it all up and hid it in her closet under a sheet, just like he had done when I stopped doing her laundry in the first place. The result of this was that Jessica and Pint’s room looked acceptable and, until recently, I was none the wiser. That is until the monster ate one too many still-damp towels that had been thrown on the floor and exploded like that guy in the Monty Python movie. Clothes, sheets and towels came tumbling out of his former hideout/ demise location and suddenly, I, already behind on the laundry in general, started seriously contemplating arson in order to avoid washing, fluffing, and folding ten tons of soiled linens and wearables.

Since Thursday, and this is no exaggeration even though I am good at that, I have put in at least 12, read it and weep because I am, 12 hours of laundry time each day. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t go through this marathon and instead procrastinate as usual but a very nice lady/ranch hand named Elaine is coming to house-sit for four days and three nights so that we can go tent imbibing with the Camping Crowd/Stinky Cheese Girls/Book and Wine Club for Thanksgiving. I might be a suck-arse housekeeper when it comes to just us but someone else living in my home? Someone who might get attacked by the offspring of Jessica’s closet monster? I have to get the place in shape beyond its typical Universal Studios persona (looks good when you walk in but don’t go on the other side of that wall).

I think tomorrow I will have the laundry done and then the cleaning begins. Scrubbing bloodhounds' slobber, it’s not just for the Meem’s visits anymore.

And now your Pint-related chuckle of the week… yesterday morning as I was scooping dog poo with garbage bag in one hand and plastic grocery bag covering the hand that grabs the feces, Pint wanted to “help.” He jumped up and down chanting, “Scoop poo, scoop poo!” Acquiescing, I grabbed him another plastic grocery bag and into the yard we went. Pint became very unhappy that I was getting all the good poo so I grabbed a few logs-that-don’t-go-on-the-fire and put them in his bag for him. His mood brightened and he chirped, “Thank you!” and we went about our merry way like this until our job was complete. Here we bought the kid choo-choos when what really makes him happy is sh*t in a bag. This is really going to save on our Christmas budget.

Cheers!

Comments

[Julie]

Ohh, where are you going camping? Sounds like great fun!!

[Nancy K.]

Lauren, you have to know that I love you dearly. It is only because of that love that I'm going to risk overstepping the line and offering the following suggestion. GET ON JESSICA'S CASE LIKE FLIES ON SHIT!!!! She is a grown woman, living in her mother's house ~ there is NO excuse for her not to do her own laundry, or at the very least, put it with the family laundry so that someone can do it FOR her.

I'm sorry. I truly am. But you've got enough to do without having to wait on and clean up after a grown up Jessica.

On the lighter side ~ I've got a real easy (and much less gross) method of picking up poop! I use a plastic "pitch fork-rake" that I bought at Farm and Fleet. Any poop that is small enough to fall out between the tines is OK to be on the ground. The vast majority of the piles in my yard, fit nicely in the scoop part of the fork and I'm able to remove feces without bending over or touching it!

On the other hand, I can see where the joint venture with the Pint might be kind of fun.....

;-)

[Michelle]

I quickly second Nancy's suggestion, but will move on to say that you can't be too hard on yourself about cleaning house if you also go about picking up poo on a regular basis. You are a cleaning diva, you are!

[Allena Jackson]

HA, I'm sorry to post on this older post, but I feel your pain.

I have 4 kids, laundry isn't a chore, it's a way of life. If you have a kid over 10, then they should be doing at least half of the laundry lol. My 14 year old does, laundry and dishes.

Finally, kids love poop, in any form. My now five year old use to run around the yard and stick twigs in the piles....uh yeah honey, how neat. kids, sheesh.