The Laundry Dance

You put your color load in.
You take your color load out.
You put your white load in,
and you agitate it around.

You do the laundry dance until all your dirty clothes are done and out.
That’s what it’s all about!

(Sung pretty horribly to the tune of “Hokey Pokey” if you couldn’t already tell.)

I seriously feel like my life is one big dirty pile of clothing. It never ends. I believe it’s got Gremlins-like tendencies, that by my application of water to clean them, immediately they multiply. And I swear I don’t feed them after midnight, but I think the leftover food on the clothes might be doing it for me. Crap!

Having children wear uniforms to school is tough—especially the ‘khaki and white polo’ aspects of it. They want kids to wear light pants and white shirts? Are they serious? Do they not know kids get filthy?

Needless to say, having children in uniform means double the laundry. They take their “school clothes” off to come home and get into “regular clothes” so, by end of day, I have twice as many dirty clothes. For each kid. Remember, I have SIX kids. So, pardon my french, but that’s an assload of laundry to do e-v-e-r-y day, let alone to have to chase after when it doesn’t get brought down appropriately.

We finally tasked my oldest with bringing down the laundry each morning, figuring that she, of all the children, would be able to accurately make sure it all gets to where it needs to be. WRONG. She doesn’t bother to bring down anything that isn’t in the hall laundry-hamper. So, if my younger children strip their clothes off like snakeskin and shed it on the floor of the bathroom? Tough cookies! She leaves it. It isn’t “her job” —her job is to bring down the laundry, not pick up after them, she says, in all her holier-than-though, teenager-y, Justin Bieber-worshipping almighty-ness.

Is there a such thing as Death By Laundry? If not, there will be. With my name all over that obituary.