When Every Day is Laundry Day

There is no such thing as laundry day at our house. That’s because with a seven member household,
and six of the seven being male, every day is laundry day.

The boys really aren’t having fun unless they’re getting dirty. Good thing for them my wife is fine with this. She had accepted from the get go that little boys are going to make big messes and get real messy. Hey, at least we have a washing machine.

Sometimes I feel bad for our washing machine though. Since we use it way more than the average family the machine that ended up at our house really did get a bum deal. Maybe those Maytag commercials where the “Maytag man” is the machine have caused an inordinate amount of projected personification, but I’m almost sure I walked by the washing machine and heard it hiss, “I hate your kids.”

I wouldn’t blame it though. Aside from an inordinately heavy workload (bedding during potty training!), the poor washer at our house has been subjected to cruel and unusual punishment in the form of non-clothes items that make it into the wash. Markers, toys, rocks, a beach’s-worth of sand -- all have tried to leave their mark.

The 2-year-old managed to get a diaper into the washing machine the other day. The diaper literally disintegrated in the spin cycle. When the machine stopped all that was left of the diaper was the gelatinous absorbent material spread all over the clothes and the entire wash basin.

I assisted my wife with the clean up and she perfectly described the act of wiping the mess out of the washer as, “like removing the guts from a pumpkin.” Poor, poor washing machine.

And while I’m sure it would be cursing my kids, there would be advantages to having a washing machine that could talk.  For one, it could assist with the clean clothes problem.

The worst part of laundry day being every day: tons of clean clothes are being put in the hamper or washing machine. The boys have decided a shortcut to cleaning their room, which is regularly strewn with clothing, is to pick up an armload and deposit it in the laundry room. The 3-year-old looks like a walking pile of laundry when he comes down the hall at clean up time.

There were three brand new t-shirts in their room and the 3-year-old, very seriously, tried to convince me these sparkling white, still folded-how-they-were-in-the-package, clean shirts were dirty. It’s enough to make you go mad.

I wish the washer were alive and could start yelling, “clean clothes! Clean clothes!” when the boys try and sneak a pile of unfolded but unworn clothes in there. Or at least refuse to open.

But (for now) the washer remains inanimate. Which means the boys will continue to sneak clean clothes into the laundry, the washing machine will continue to wash rocks, and every day will still be laundry day.