The other day my wife said "Can you put laundry in the washer?"
"Sure, honey," I replied. I strode to our laundry room and saw three separate piles of clothes. I put one of them in. There was so much space left in the washer, so I picked up the second pile and put that in too. And there was still some space left. I love my wife, so I said to myself --Let's get in the third pile too, so she won't have to to this when she gets back. So in went the third pile of our son's bright colored T -shirts. Then I looked around for soap and I put a scoop in. My wife's going to love this! All the laundry done before she returns home!
Then I noticed a bottle of bleach next to the soap. Didn't I just put in some white clothes too? So in went a cup of bleach. I slammed the laundry door shut and looked for the "Wash" button. To my surprise, there was none. There were fifty other buttons and tiny flickering lights, as if I was looking at the dashboard of a fancy sports car! I tried making sense of the words delicates, cotton, sturdy etc. And why was "hand wash" labeled on the panel? If I was going to hand wash my clothes, I wouldn't use the machine, would I? And what in the hell is fluff? I thought fluff was the frothy stuff floating on top of a Cappuccino!
And then there were numerous options for water temperature...hot/warm, warm/warm, cold/cold etc. etc. That was confusing. Do clothes really care about the temperature of the water they are being washed in? It was winter, so I punched the hot button!
But it was done. I felt proud, the laundry room looked so clean. I could hardly wait for my wife to return. And when she finally did, I just looked up and said, with a smile "There's a surprise for you in the Laundry room."
"My God, what did you do?" she said and rushed up the stairs. And then I waited for the sweet nothings to shower down. Instead, I heard a shriek. I looked up and saw her holding her favorite white top, only..... it seemed to be faded pink.
"That one is just like your favorite white shirt."
"This is my favorite white shirt" she replied, rather frostily.
"So why did it change color?"
"Why don't you tell me, sweetie." And take my word, there was nothing sweet in that "sweetie." The rest of the conversation......... Well, I'll leave it to your imagination!
Now there's a Laxman rekha around our laundry room, and I dare not cross it.
But I realized then that clothes suffer discrimination too. You see, as my wife patiently explained to me, the delicates don't get along with the cotton/sturdy ones, and the whites definitely want to go it alone in the washer, as they don't mix well with the colored clothes!
So, my fellow men, mow the lawn, hang a painting, do whatever...... but if asked to do laundry, just say no and walk away. It's too complicated for simple souls!
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