A Sorted Affair

Laundry is not my favorite chore. Nor is it in my top one hundred. I don’t care for having all the responsibility for any dirty clothing or linens, whatsoever. It may even be fair to say I hate laundry. The word ‘chore’ was surely invented specifically to describe the task of doing laundry.

When I am on the phone to any customer service rep, they inevitably end our call with a polite “And is there anything else I can help you with today?” My instant and enthusiastic response is “Yes, laundry!” They laughingly decline. I hang up, morose. Not ONCE has anyone volunteered to do it for me.

When each of our children obtained the ripe old age of thirteen, they were ceremoniously give the absolute and complete control of their own laundry. No more “Where’s my uniform?” or “Are there any clean jeans?” Heck, they are now teenagers and miserable anyway. Doing their own laundry might remind them of how good they really had things in their distant past childhood. I supply the machines, detergent, dryer sheets and stain sprays. When they are off to full independent living, they will need to obtain those things on their own. Occasionally I will even allow them to sneak an item into one of my loads. It’s always good for a car wash or foot rub.

My husband is a whole different sort – or should I say “sorter”.  For years I would ask him to take the laundry to the laundry room and sort it all out into one of five wash bins. Blue jeans, whites/lights, colors, reds, and linens (towels & sheets). Sound simple? Ha!

I remember the first few times I started a load from one of the bins. My black panties were in the whites. One of his blue socks was in with the blues jeans and the other in with the colors. Red pillowcases were in the reds, but the rest of the red sheets were in with the linens.

After several weeks of this ‘sort’ of sorting, I finally asked my hubby to explain. He responded with his ever amusing ‘aspie logic’.

“The black panties go into the whites because you said ‘whites and lights’. Your panties hardly weigh anything so they go in there. I wasn’t too sure about the blue socks because they are colored but I wore them with my blue jeans so I put one in each bin hoping that I’d get at least one right. The red pillowcases go in red because they are pillowcases and not sheets, and you said ‘towels and sheets’ go in the other one so I put the red sheets in there.”

Ahhhh. Okay. I now sort my own (and spouse’s) laundry to start with. It’s much, much easier. And don’t even get me started on trying to get him to put all his clothes away.  THAT business is way too sorted...