On Laundry and the Creative Muse

I should preface this post with a disclaimer: I’ve been on hiatus, which is a nice way of saying I haven’t had much inspiration of late. I was going to write about the struggle to persevere during a loss of creativity, but first I had to do the laundry and, well, this is what came out instead.

I’m a guy, and as such am expected to meet certain performance benchmarks. These include carrying an equal share of the housework while also serving as resident handyman, bug-killer, jar-opener and top shelf-reacher. Then there’s the loving, attentive husband and the wise yet impartial father-figure with an encyclopedic memory and generous demeanor. All this while maintaining six-pack abs through an active lifestyle that includes mountain biking, kayaking and the occasional zoomba routine. During my down time it’s off to the salon for a quick waxing session, to deforest the back and part the uni-brow.

It is a burden I bear gladly, with perhaps one exception. Laundry. I can say with certainty that, whatever “answers” there are to be found in this life, none have ever revealed themselves to me while I was sorting colors. Usually I can be counted on to make the same face as that anguished soul in Munch’s “The Scream,” whom I have no doubt had just opened the dirty clothes hamper.

Even so, I try to stay positive as I wedge myself into that tiny room where the washer and dryer lie in wait. No, I’m not having a stroke – it’s just the florescent lights flickering and buzzing overhead (Christ, I thought Gitmo was the only place where you could still find those). I can’t remember the last time I checked the lint trap which, consequently, looks like some sort of unholy chia pet come to life. Then, as I’m shoving the first load in, there they are – sock balls. Pardon me while my head explodes.

Of all the things over which a person can get their undies in a tangle – global warming, political insurrection without consequence, someone putting the toilet paper on the spindle the wrong way so it comes off the roll from underneath instead of over the top – one of the highest on my list would have to be those festering wads of bunched cotton that lurk amongst the sweat-kissed tee-shirts and dribbled upon blue jeans. If there is anything that could make me turn on my family like the gerbil I had when I was 7 that polished off her entire brood, it’s sock balls.

Formed as they’re being improperly peeled off the feet, it should fall on the peeler (you know who you are) to unroll the sock balls right then and there, but instead they go straight into the basket, left to petrify in their redolent funk. A grievous miscalculation, as sock ball insanity has been cited as a successful defense in capital murder cases.

I can see why. They are impossible to cleanse in such a state. I know – I’ve tried. Even the most advanced washing machines and high-powered agitators are no match for these toe-jam grenades. It’s that old “garbage in, garbage out” thing. Don’t expect the wash cycle to miraculously undo them. Like cockroaches, they are able to survive anything and retain moisture indefinitely, even after three cycles in the dryer at the “surface of the sun” setting. So every one of them has to be painstakingly unfurled, which is why my laundry room is equipped with a set of these…

Yet, were I to somehow get through an entire load without coming across a single sock ball, there would still be the matter of fitted sheets to contend with. Because, when I die and go to Hell it will be my job to fold fitted sheets for all eternity, an endless stream of them rushing down a conveyor belt toward me like those pieces of candy Lucille Ball was trying to corral, piling up at my feet as I struggle to get so much as one to conform to a shape that has anything remotely resembling four corners.

May we all be blissfully naked and sleep on clouds in the next life.

Image courtesy of indylaundry.net