That's Life: Dealing with Dirty Laundry
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I do not take laundry in, as one might assume, considering how much I accumulate. But I am sloppy, spilling juice on my robe when I eat breakfast and unwittingly dipping the sleeves of my blouses and sweaters into the water when I rinse the dishes. (Why is it that water causes stains, when it is the very element we use to clean our bodies as well as dishes and laundry?)
I should not complain about doing the laundry, as the washing machine and dryer truly do the hardest part of the chore. I remember my mother bending over the deep washtub in the kitchen, scrubbing clothes on a washboard. With five of us to keep looking respectably clean, Mother's knuckles were red after a stint at the washboard. And her back ached after she carried a basket filled with wet wash to a window in her bedroom, and hung it on a line.
In the early years of my marriage, my husband, Bill, and I rented an upstairs apartment in a two-family house, and the landlady did not allow tenants to install a washing machine. So Bill piled our soiled clothes and linens into a shopping cart and wheeled them to a laundromat. Besides the quarters he needed to run the machines there, he would also take along a book to read. By the time our family increased to four, with the addition of two children, we had saved enough money to put a down payment on a house. The house we chose had a nice back yard for the children to play in and, for me, there was a space for a washer and dryer. The space, however, was in the basement, two flights below the bedrooms.
I developed a system for tending to the laundry that would not interfere with my children's care. Before leaving for work, Bill would watch over the children, Jennifer and her big brother Christopher, who was nearly 4 when we moved into the house, as I emptied the hamper in the upstairs bathroom and dragged the wash down to the basement.
While the washer was humming, I would go back upstairs, kiss Bill goodbye as he set out for the office, and then feed the children. After breakfast, I would tell the children, "Now, you can play in the basement." As Christopher walked down the stairs, I would follow, carrying Jennifer.
In the basement, I would deposit Jennifer in a playpen to ensure that she would be safe while I transferred the wash to the dryer. The heat thrown from the dryer, drove away the chill of the basement, and the children, dressed in pajamas and robes, were cozy as they watched "Sesame Street," on an old-model TV the former owners had left behind, or played with the puzzles, model cars, dolls and plush animals they pulled from a large wooden toy chest.
After the wash was dry, I would put Jennifer back in the playpen and carry the wash upstairs to the living room. "Watch her," I would tell Christopher.
From the day I had brought newborn Jennifer home from the hospital, Christopher had been eager to help me take care of her. He fetched diapers and baby powder, amused her, ran to me when she dropped her cookie on the floor and then picked it up. "Mommy, give Jenny a new cookie before she eats germs," he would say.
By the time I fetched the children from the basement, Jennifer was ready for a nap so I tucked her into her crib. When she woke up and called out to me, I lugged the wash upstairs.
There were also two flights of stairs one needed to climb to reach the front door of our home in New York. I made many trips up and down them on shopping days when I bought, among other things, the extra-mild detergent I used for washing the children's clothing and linens, and another detergent for my husband's and my things.
Years later, Bill took over the laundry patrol when we moved to Williamstown. Once unbeknownst to me, he washed our clothing with a detergent a Williams College student whom he had befriended gave to him, after cleaning out his dorm room the day before he graduated.
Soon after Bill brought the wash upstairs from the basement and I folded it, my arms and back became itchy. When I could not reach a spot on my back, I asked Bill to scratch it. "You have a rash," he said, as he looked at my back.
Well, by the next morning, there was nary an inch on my back or arms that was not covered with red spots, so Bill drove me to the doctor's office. "An allergic reaction," was the doctor's diagnosis, and he prescribed pills and a salve. Three times a day for more than a week, I swallowed the pills — mashed, of course — and Bill applied the salve to my back. Now when sleepover company goes home, leaving me buried under linens and I send them out to be washed, I specify that the laundromat use the same detergent as I do — the original not any of the various "new and improved" ones that contain heaven knows what kind of bleaching agent or scent.
Well, I have delayed doing the wash long enough, and since I have yet to win the Lottery and hire a maid, I had best get to it now.
