Thursday, November 03, 2005

How to fold a shirt

I came across this video on how to fold a shirt today. I'm a good shirt folder, but nothing like this. It's like magic. I need a shirt here so I can give it a try. Needless to say, the video got me thinking about laundry.

G and I are not great laundry-doers. This of course, comes as a surprise to those of you who heard about why E decided G was great for the first time. (While house sitting for E, G did laundry and not only folded the stuff that was left in the dryer, but also emptied the lint trap.)

Our washer and dryer are hand-me-downs - a friend of a friend kind of thing. All we had to do was pick them up. We had been warned not to put too much stuff in the dryer at once because it has a tendancy to eat shirt collars, leaving a black residue. We weren't concerned - after all, they were free.

So, yes, our dryer eats clothes if we load it too full.
We're not sure how it eats them, but eat them it does. Mostly shirt collars, but sometimes just right in the middle of a garment with no rhyme or reason. I'm sure this could be fixed by a trusty Maytag man, but it hasn't been a priority.

Due to the overloading problem, our laundry protocol is to dry only half a load of laundry at a time. Herein lies part of the laundry problem. Not only do you have to remember to transfer the laundry from the washer to the dryer, you have to remember twice. So sometimes laundry gets forgotten in the washer. Since our laundry room is not air conditioned this often results in stinky wet clothes that need to be washed again.

The second part of our laundry problem is a lack of prompt folding. And I think it all comes down to priority. If I didn't have anything else going on, I don't think I would mind folding laundry. But I'm a busy girl, so I just put it off and pile it up. G is actually better at this part than I am - he is kind of obsessive about folding/hanging his stuff immediately after it is finished drying.

That brings me to an odd thing about G and I. We've been married for five years and have successfully merged our homes, finances, and lives. Except for one thing - we keep our dirty laundry separate, and we launder it separately. I do mine, and he does his. We do mingle our stuff sometimes, but it's usually just if I have extra room in my load of whites or something. Odd, huh?

So I'm going to go home and try the fancy shirt folding technique. I'll let you know how it goes.



3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Separate laundry - doesn't sound like a healthy marriage. I recommend that you start doing G's laundry (and folding it promptly thereafter) before you become another failed marriage statistic.

-Bob from Sacramento (ie, G).

Anonymous said...

Best video ever. After decades of compete folding befuddlement, I think I'm almost ready to give it another try.

Anonymous said...

Now I think it's the worst video ever! I try to follow it, but still fail every time. Stop the insanity!