This is my cry for help! I’m being held captive in my own home by a pair of individuals who never let me rest. The torture is constant as I fight and fight for my freedom but am continually held tightly in their grasp, relentlessly working to achieve completion of their assigned task. The laundry room is my prison and the washer and dryer are my captors. The never ending stream of laundry holds me hostage and antagonizes me from every corner of my home.
Moms, I know there are many of you fighting this battle — we are in this together. The piles of dirty clothes awaiting to be cleaned taunt me from hamper and baskets; the sky high mountain of clean laundry awaits folding and keeps me from sitting comfortably on my sofa to enjoy a television show without guilt. The clothes in the dryer impatiently await their second, third, fourth spin — eliminating the wrinkles once more.
I really wish I was coming to you with a solution for this torture, but I have none. I cannot deny that I have dug items out of a hamper, sprayed some fabric refresher on them and tossed them in the dryer before wearing just to get one more use. I try my hardest to stay on top of the laundry monster, but I always seem to fail miserably. I wash clothes before bed, before work, while I cook dinner, but it always seems like there is more. When my home isn’t filled with the whirring of my washer or dryer the house is eerily quiet. Just last night as I was tucking my children in for the night, I suddenly realized one important piece of my daughter’s uniform was buried deep under a basket of dirty laundry. So at 9pm on Sunday night I found myself in the laundry room starting up the machine yet again. It really is an exhausting and never ending battle that I know I will never win.
In my dreams I think about perfectly organized closets and drawers arranged by color and clothes on fancy padded hangers. I’m just lucky to get my laundry moved from the back of our sofa where our clean, mostly folded laundry lives for several days before returning to its proper place, just to be dirtied once again.
One day, surely I will break free from this prison. But for now, I must leave you to tend to the clothes that are spinning in the dryer for the second time, beckoning me to remove them before the wrinkles set in.
