Laundry rantings

I was reading Amy's blog the other day and noticed her blog quiz in which was asked the question "What brand of laundry soap do you use?" Now, I don't particularly care what brand of laundry soap anybody uses, but the question brings to mind one of my particular pet peeves...doing laundry. I am blessed with a four-boy-household (one of which is my husband) and I find myself doing a lot of laundry. I am not that particular or picky when it comes to the type of soap I use or the cycle I choose to do my washes; in my laundry room the laundry dials are permanently set on extra extra big load, & extra cold wash (to save money and energy). I tend to stuff as much as I can into our poor tired machine so as not to waste the day on transferring clothes from one machine to another. If it can be crammed into one load, all the better.

Now, there are some good things about laundry...let me see...I haul the clothes basket up and down the stairs which not only improves my cardiovascular system and lung capacity, but also builds up my muscle bulk. I fold and sort each boys stuff into piles, which improves my dexterity and pattern recognition skills. If I'm particularly lucky, I snag one or two of the boys to help with the folding, which improves my mother son relationship and gives me a chance to impart to them the importance of cleanliness and the fact that men are capable of doing their own laundry, something that hopefully someday their future wives will benefit from. Then, I bellow out for each of them to gather up their individual piles and squirrel them away in the drawers in their rooms and this gives me a chance to vocalize and perfect my managerial capabilities.

What I find odd is that I find myself doing laundry, one or two loads every other day. How can this be, I often find myself grumbling? I would have thought that this amount of laundry would ensue only from a household of girls. How can these boys produce such volumes of dirty clothes. In fact, my stuff takes up about 1% of the entire load; the rest is boxers, briefs, socks, endless t-shirts, jeans and of course countless towels. I have had a sneaking suspicion as to why all this laundry keeps cropping up and the other day my worst fears were proven correct. After an incredibly backbreaking, marathon laundry episode, I turned around a minute later only to find that the boys' laundry basket full to over flowing, AGAIN! In an attempt to avoid putting away their clean clothes the boys were stuffing them back into the dirty laundry hamper. In that moment I saw red. I hit the roof. I was furious. Who says I don't have Italian blood coursing through my veins. I had a prima donna melt down any Italian mamma would have been proud of. After it was over the boys sheepishly retreated into their rooms and diligently put away their clothes. Michael reappeared a few moments later, looked at me, shrugged and held open his arms for a hug. How can I stay mad at THAT!

So, laundry is one of those dismal daily chores that doesn't go away. I can derive satisfaction in getting it done. My lament is that it just doesn't stay done! It isn't glamorous or creative or all that pleasurable. It is a chore, clean and simple. Last year when I was painting the boys' bedrooms and hallway I took moment out to also paint the laundry room a cheery yellow in an attempt to liven up the whole laundry scene. Along the top of the wall I painted in cursive script an inscription: Il bucato che non finisce mai! Translated: The laundry that never ends. As if I needed to be reminded!