Before I was a butch wife, I was a butch bachelor(ette). In those days, I separated my laundry into two piles — clean and dirty. And that was just sometimes. It was not unheard of for the two piles to comingle, as all my stuff did, and when it came to getting dressed, I’d just pick something from the super-pile and hope for the best.
But now I am a butch wife and those days are long behind me. My wife, who works a lot more than I do, usually does the laundry, and she is a frickin’ expert. She knows exactly what gets washed with what, which temperature is right for cleaning and drying each load, and deciding how rigorous a treatment the clothes get. Delicate? Swedish? Shiatsu? Who knows? Rebecca, that’s who. Time after time, she schleps downstairs with a pile of dirty stuff and an hour or so later, the clothes are perfectly clean, each article lovingly cared for, each stain artfully removed.
On occasion, doing the laundry falls to me. Tempted to fall back on my experience as a bachelor(ette), I consider just throwing the whole kit ‘n kaboodle into the machine, washing everything at a medium, and figuring I can’t be too far off the mark. But I know that if I followed this course, faster than you can say, “Honey, I shrunk the unmentionables,” I would likely be a bachelorette again.
So I try to get it right. I stare at all the clothes that need to be washed and think there’s something about lights going with lights and darks going with darks, except bras, which are usually light, but should not be washed in hot water. And some of my light t-shirts, which say “wash in cold water.” T-shirts? Really?
A middle former child, and a sort of ex-Buddhist, I choose the middle path. I pick out everything that’s not black, white, dark blue or labelled “wash in cold water.” I throw what’s left into the washer, set the thingy to medium (in laundry parlance, I think it’s called “warm”) and head to my recliner. When the wash is done (usually after about two innings), I throw everything into the dryer, set it to medium and let the clothes dry until the final out is made. And voila. Laundry done.
Nobody said being a butch wife was easy. But if I can do it, so can you.
Linda, Butch Wife Extraordinaire
Julie
lindageb
