The Laundry Wars

My wife and I are pretty smart (which I know I am always reminding you), but for some reason, we both believe the other can never, ever comprehend The Laundry. We're both so territorial about our clothes that neither of us likes the other to start a load. When she is home, B does it. I don't like this because, while she gets stains out and never ruins anybody's clothing, she continually leaves the room where we are socializing to deal with it. Sometimes this even occurs during cocktail hour! When I ask to help, in an effort to keep the disruption shorter, I'm told to "just play with Ari." Then she tells me that I've got to be kidding because there is no way I could possibly do anything but destroy the already precarious Laundry Situation. (This second part she tells me silently, with her eyes, which is lucky for her, I tell you, otherwise cocktail hour might become cocktail face!)

When B is not home, I avoid almost all of her clothes.  I'm scared, you see, because she sometimes has Unwritten Instructions about certain items, and I cannot remember which ones they are (the instructions or the items.)  I feel that she over-complicates The Laundry Process.

This thing holds the clean laundry we never fold. Isn't it beautiful?

To be honest, we both do. We used to have one hamper for darks, one for lights, and one for Ari's clothes.  I decided that Ari should be with the rest of us, since we haven't done his laundry separately for years.  Now we have one hamper for darks, one for lights, and one for whites.  I quickly noticed that the darks and whites are never full.  Because of this, I instituted a new sorting system which is too complex to explain to anyone.  I haven't even tried to tell B. Oh, sure, I've told her the basic gist, but I haven't shared the intricacies. In a marriage, you've got to leave something to the imagination.

So, I don't explain. I just go behind her and re-sort. Basically, if the item is light, but could conceivably go in the darks (because it's old and no one cares if it gets dingy), then I put it in the darks. The same is true for in-betweens. However, this is not true if there is something new in the darks that might bleed. Basically, the point of this is to try to get a full load of darks more frequently. Of course, even when I have a full load, I can't run it because most darks belong to B (She is a black-wearer, while A and I love pastels.), and I am afraid of ruining something by not knowing the Unwritten Instructions. Just last Thursday, I did a load of seemingly innocuous darks, which contained only one tank top of B's. (I was feeling too fragile to attempt more than one.) Cotton, from the Gap. Easy, right? Just to be safe, I hung it to dry. Sometimes B likes things to air dry even though they are supposed to be safe for the dryer. She came home from her mediation and declared it would have to be rewashed because she does not like "how it gets when it air dries." Sigh.

The hampers.  Wet washcloths dangle over the edge, so they do not make mildew.  This is crucial.

B no longer even tells me the Unwritten Instructions, which I'm fine with, since I can't keep track of them and they kind of piss me off, anyway. I don't tell her about my new sorting rationale because I barely understand it. Sometimes, I get so confused about what's dark and what's light and what counts as completely white (You'd think that would be easy, but there are white socks with grey heels and toes that can be bleached!) that I don't know what to think.

There is a lesson in this somewhere, but it feels like a pointless pain. Maybe our struggles to please each other re: laundry are a replacement for the flowers we can rarely give. (The cat eats them and pukes. If we keep them shut in the bathroom, Ari lets the cat in. If Ari sees them, he insists on giving them away to his teachers, which is only sweet the first six times. And so on. . .) Maybe I do B's laundry when I'll probably screw it up because it engages me with her while she's traveling, so I miss her less. Maybe my need to romanticize even laundry means I need a job. Both of us have unreasonable Laundry Expectations. They're a metaphor for our unreasonable and complicated expectations in general, our vast differences but our similar needs to feel like Myriads of Contradiction. Every attempt to wash each other's clothing becomes a grand gesture, and I can't help but think we must really love each other to even try.