Okay, so I stole a quote from Shakespeare’s Henry the Fifth to talk about something as mundane as laundry.
I’m not going to let a little theft “hamper” me.
GUY LAUNDRY
So I was doing laundry the other day.
Guy Laundry.
Guy Laundry is where you wait until you are down to at least the bottom half of all the clothes you own and finally decide “it’s time to do laundry”.
Some guys will wait until they are down to holes with bits of shirt defining those holes and bathing-suits-for-underwear before they get around to pulling out some detergent.
I, myself, have been known to do the “sniff test” before putting on a garment that has been previously worn and not washed since the previous wearing.
I can get several days (possibly weeks) out of a pair of jeans before I either drop mustard and/or ketchup all over them or they can stand on their own and start struggling for consciousness. I drown those insurrections out immediately. Just cover my naughty bits … and don’t tell me about it. I need my jeans to cover my legs, not up in arms.
Damned uppity denim.
The last thing I need is Revolt of the Jeans.
OUT OF SORTS
Most Guy Laundry consists of grabbing appropriate-seeming armfuls of garb and stuffing an armload into the washing machine.
But I … I have learned to sort.
Hey, I’ve had a girlfriend.
I’m almost even house trained.
So there I am in the middle of the living room sorting a rather large pile of pre-conscious apparel.
Whites go over there.
Blacks go over here.
Kind of like a textile apartheid.
Tans might make it into the green pile and browns might slip into the black pile. A cowboy gold might even sneak into the beige pile.
My border security is much like America’s at this point.
You are supposed to take fabric material into account too.
Fortunately, I don’t own too many “delicates”.
I have managed to wash (and over-dry) a nice wool sweater into something only a Barbie doll could wear though.
I have also put pink streaks into high-thread count, good hotel-quality sheets by carelessly letting a red mechanic’s rag get into the load.
Sorting is obviously an important time to pay attention.
STORM THE BLEACHES
Now I’m to the put-it-into-the-machine part.
As I measure detergent into the correctly heated (or unheated) water, I grab up the bleach and find myself asking a question: “Why don’t bleach bottles have measuring caps?”
The detergent bottles I buy have nifty measuring caps with lines that tell me how much I should be using for my whatever size load I may be doing.
As a guy, that load size is always MAXIMUM. I usually just fill the cap and dump it in.
Then I get to the bleach. I’m supposed to guess?
Normally, I use the same lid from the detergent bottle but only fill it about halfway.
Did I mention I have a lot of tie-dye looking shirts that were not purchased looking that way?
I suppose I could do something silly like dedicate a measuring cup to the washroom. But how hard is it to make a lid with the right amount to use for that particular kind of whitener?
You are probably aware that there are several different kinds of whiteners, brighteners and other additives that promise to turn your clothes into a glorious ray of blinding sunshine. They come in regular, concentrated, super-concentrated, ultra-concentrated and totally focused. The one I always choose is the one that’s on sale, so I almost always have a couple of different brands around. They all require different amounts per brand, per concentration and per load size. Instead of making me read the literature on the back of a small bottle, why can’t they just give me a graduated bottle cap?
I, as a stupid American consumer, demand it!
SOME DRYER HUMOR
When the washing machine stops gurgling and making the whooshing sounds of the spin cycle, it is time to put your newly centrifuged and compressed clothes into the dryer and turn it on.
If you fail to do this … if you leave your slightly damp and tightly compacted outfits in the washing machine ... you will regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow—but as soon as you eventually open that washer to find your neglected clothes giving off a whole new and unpleasant dimension in smell you will learn new depths of despair and shame.
Also, you will have to wash those clothes again … and again … and again until the smell is once again tolerable.
I find adding vinegar (Lots. More than a detergent capload even) to the soap for the initial anti-smell wash works pretty well.
Adding vinegar every once in a while helps keep your washing machine clean too.
But I should probably get to the dryer since I put that subhead in there. Quit giving me static.
Speaking of static (nice segue, huh?), dryer sheets are handy little pieces of ephemera that you throw into the dryer with your stuff so they don’t stick together.
Dryer sheets are also useful for about a thousand other things. Set one in a greasy pan full of water and the sheet helps break up the grease as it soaks. Put one in your stinky shoes to help eliminate shoe funk. Wear one in your hat to help regrow hair. Keep one in your panties to cure yeast infections.
Okay, the last two I made up. But seriously, there are a lot of uses for the humble dryer sheet.
Look it up.
The other thing I like about dryer sheets is that you do not have to guess at the amount to use. You use one per load.
So, of course, I use two.
I’m a man. We normally come to the conclusion that more is better.
IT’S A TEMP THING
When drying clothes, you are supposed to take into account what temperature the kind of fabric you are shoving in there can tolerate. Remember the wool sweater shrinkage? Wool does not react well to heat and tends to contract rapidly.
The correct setting for cotton, on the other hand, is “flamethrower”. So read your labels — or be prepared to donate part of your wardrobe to much smaller people on a regular basis.
I hope I have cleared up some mysteries of the laundry room for you. I will pass along more tips as they present themselves.
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