The Perils of Laundry

Cleanliness is next to Godliness. If that's true, God's not been to my laundry room in quite some time. Of all my domestic duties, I despise laundry the most. So much so, that I've considered becoming a nudist. (I know, I know. Scary.)

When the clean clothes are almost gone and I begin thinking that gnomes are stealing my son's underpants, I start to think I should do laundry. But then I remember Monty Python and the Holy Grail and agree that "It's too perilous" and I should just "Run Away!!!"

It's not only the volume and frequency of loads that bothers me or the tediousness of folding every Lilliputian article of clothing in the Soiled Textile Mountain Range. It's dangerous. Not danger from an avalanche (although I've heard urban myths), but from little surprises and runaway socks.

Everyone has mathematical socks. Two socks plus one cycle equals one sock. (I firmly believe that "one cycle" is actually a negative value.) However, not many people have socks that actually run away. (Even my laundry doesn't want to do laundry.) One of my daughter's above mentioned Lilliputian socks has made it's way to Afghanistan. I'm pretty sure that little girl's gumballs socks are not military issue gear. I can only hope for the best.

The truly dangerous part comes from the child learning to toilet train. Oh Boy! Give them an inch and they'll take a mile, give them bowel independence and they'll give you poop in the laundry. My son had an accident one day and didn't tell me, just went and put on new underpants. I should be very proud of his initiative, but I'm not. Because... I was doing laundry about a week later and there, fossilized in a pair of Optimus Prime underwear was the poop in the laundry.

My laundry has just informed me that it's atheist so there's no need to be cleanly, which is good because it's really much too perilous!