May 28th, 2008

Tales from the Laundry Crypt

by Jen Byers

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One recent morning I was helping Curtis, my 6-year-old, get ready for school. When I handed him a pair of socks to put on, he looked at them with delight and exclaimed, “Cool! Matching socks!” (Ah, such simple pleasures in life). After I got over my chagrined amusement, I realized that the state of my laundry was scary enough to prompt such a statement. Then a light went on in my head and I had one of my famous “Aha! Duh” moments: “That’s what it means to ‘air your dirty laundry.’” What better way to reach into the innermost chaos of a big, crazy family than to take a good, hard look at what each kid in that family is wearing?

I first noticed this laundry phenomenon several years ago while I was pregnant with my sixth child and sick in bed most of the time. In the mornings, the kids would come in to kiss me goodbye as they headed off for school. One time as they walked out, I noticed that Cody was wearing an ankle sock with a suspiciously pink hue on one foot. On his other foot he was wearing a sock that extended well beyond his chubby little knee and disappeared under his shorts, the heel hanging out in a strange bulge over the back of his shoe. If not his fashion sense, I had to admire his creativity in coping with the large piles of dirty laundry everywhere.

I’m sorry to say, even non-pregnant I don’t seem to notice the sad state of what my children wear until my observant daughter Hannah points out to me that Jonah has worn the same shirt every day since, well, who knows when? I must have thought it was a different shirt because each day it had a new and interesting pattern of dirt and spots on it. I guess it’s become his unofficial school uniform.

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In a similar situation, when folding the laundry, I sometimes notice that all of the boys’ underwear is in the basket I just folded. I then wonder, with a fearful kind of shock, “What have those boys been wearing while all this underwear was lost in the laundry black hole?” One time, Cody caught me throwing away old, holey socks from the defunct sock basket. He frantically rescued them from the garbage and cried in horror, “Mom! If you throw these away, where will I ever find socks to wear?” For all I know, maybe they’ve been pulling old underwear out of the garbage, too. I just hope no one turns me in after these revelations, especially after they realize the incredible self-reliance that my boys have developed.

One of my sons, Curtis, gets very creative when his regular clothing supply runs dry. Last month, for many days in a row, he wore ensembles from the “winter clothes” box: they generally involved strange, little-used long-sleeved shirts with glow-in-the-dark skeletons and the like on them. They’re usually two or three sizes too big, but he fishes them out of the closet’s abyss nonetheless. He and his brothers have also learned the art of sifting through the layers of bedroom “civilizations,” each determined to find his school spirit shirt or his missing Sunday sock. On the bright side, maybe one of them will become an archaeologist someday.

As for me, I’m thrilled with a compliment like “Cool! Matching socks!” It just shows that, even if I went to heroic lengths to get all that laundry done, they’d appreciate the little things just as much as underwear that doesn’t walk by itself or the happy smell of Downy on a towel. All those other parents who get their laundry washed and folded and into their kids’ drawers every day just aren’t adored like I am when I produce the Scooby-Doo jammies, clean again after being lost for three months. I love hearing their shouts of excitement at climbing into a bed with clean sheets twice a year. I’m happy that they’re learning to be creative and self-reliant. I only hope that their teachers can forgive me for the public airing of our dirty laundry — or at least ignore the smell.