Boxers or briefs?

I called one of my friends last week. She has 5 boys (ages 10, 12, 14, 16, 18) and one girl (age 3) but that's another story. And, she's pregnant with #7 (and that's yet another story). She was telling me that her boys were complaining recently about not having any clean underwear. She told them she did laundry every day so she didn't know what the problem was. Then she went into their bathroom and guess what she found?

15 pairs of underwear on the floor.

I've mentioned before that my brother Robes was a sportswriter. He also wrote human interest articles; a few of which I have shared on my blog. I mailed a copy of this article last week to my friend and I'll share it today with you--my blog friends. [This was the last human interest article Robes wrote before he died.]

Really cleaning up in a role reveral
Robes Patton -- Commentary
Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
February 20, 1998

So I'm wandering in and out of the garage the other night wondering if the "laundry thing" is a curse or a blessing. Or maybe it's just a gift...for my wife, Kim. I often joke with her that I'm a domesticated beast. For the most part, I don't mind if the duties in our home have undergone a bit of a flip-flop from traditional roles.

For me, cooking has become a hobby, grocery shopping an enjoyable challenge and the diswasher a fact of life. Kim, on the other hand, fixes everything.

Laundry? Well, that might be my illness or maybe an addiction.

Sometimes, I scour the house for every piece of fallen fabric. Try as they might, the socks, shorts and shirts of 10-year old Ian and 7-year old Jamel cannot be hidden. I scoop up all wayward clothes and undiscovered underwear.

If I'm on a laundry jag, I'm back and forth from the washer and dryer until everything is clean. I search for every washcloth, every security blanket, and every rag or dropcloth from my wife's home-repair projects.

Then I find Kim and announce: "Right now, at this very moment every article of clothing other than what we are wearing, every towel, every sheet in this house is clean."

It's all Mom's fault
She rolls her eyes and wonders aloud, "Do you think this is an illness?"

Let me explain. When I was 14, my mother, Nan, commanded the four kids to meet her in the laundry room. My brother, John, had been yapping about misplaced laundry. He needed this sock or that shirt. On and on and on. Finally, he had pushed Mom too far. And we all suffered the consequences.

Mom handed each of us a new plastic trash can -- hampers.

"I am going to show you all how to run the washing machine and dryer," she said. "Then, you each will choose a day. Saturday will be a catch-up day. You can trade days. But only one of you will wash per day."

We each selected a day, which she wrote next to our names on a card affixed to the cabinet above the dryer. Then she completed her demonstration with a warning--"Never put anything but white [clothes] with whites. Never!"--and turned to us with a final message.

"As of now, you're on your own. I am never doing your laundry again. If you're missing a sock, you are missing a sock. If you need a certain shirt or pair of pants for school or church, it will be your responsibility. Not mine. I will never listen to another complaint about laundry."

The four of us stood with wide eyes and worried hearts.

Achieving whiter whites
For me, it was kind of cool to be trusted with those big, loud machines. And I'm not sure I believed she was completely serious.

My youngest brother, Charles, was more than a little nervous. He was 7. That's right. Seven years old. And stranded.

I laugh now at the memory. But I have offered so much laundry advice to roommates and friends that I probably could have worked my way through college as a clean-clothes consultant.

After more than 20 years, I have changed a bit. Kim does most of the folding and all the stain removal.

Some of the lessons of Mom's Last Laundry Stand remain intact. To this day, I zip up all zippers so they won't come apart. I check all pockets for candy, gum and money. And never have I dyed underwear or white shirts baby blue or that soft shade of I-have-no-idea-how-to-do-laundry pink.

That wasn't Mom's sole shove of her sons into domestic life. She signed me up for cooking class in high school (before it was trendy). Then, of course, some nights when I asked about dinner, she or my father, Bob, would say, "It's Fix-Your-Own night."

But that's all I'm going to write about the "cooking thing".

After all, it's 10:30pm, the last load's ready to come out of the dryer and I've got baked apples on the table and a sweet potato pie in the oven.




I hope my friend goes shopping for 5 plastic trash cans this week for her boys.

P.S. My laundry day was Wednesday.