Doing laundry
There are days when it feels like I have life under control. On days like this, I do my laundry. "Soon", I think, full of hope, as I fill the washer with dirty socks and dirty underwear, "I'll reach this sought-after state, where all of my laundry has been washed".
And then, there are other days, where it's obvious that I no longer have life under control. A common characteristic of days like those is when I realise that I ran out of underwear. "Shit", I think, deprived of all hope, as I slip my naked lower body into my pants, "what has happened to me?".
The two green laundry bags that I keep in the bathroom are habit trackers: just take a look at their volume and you know to what degree I currently have life under control. Are they full? Then there's no hope. Are they almost empty? Enter the life of a grown person.
While I do enjoy the feeling of having life under control, I simply hate doing laundry. First off, there's the selection process: sorting out laundry by colour, but considering that some material is more sensitive and might need to be washed at a lower temperature, while of course bedding asks for higher temperature. Add to that, that some laundry—such as hiking garment made out of merino wool—better be washed at a low spin cycle. With all the possible configurations that washers of today possess, I already lose motivation to do laundry at the very first step of doing laundry.
Next comes the beloved process of drying. For that, one needs to collect the wet laundry—professionals use a laundry basket, I use a large plastic bag—and hang them on a drying rack. Of course, the drying rack is usually placed somewhere in my small apartment, which means it will definitely be in my way; in winter, when I keep windows closed most of the time, I'll also have to keep an eye on the humidity, which experts tell me should be kept between 40-60% to prevent mould.
Last but not least—and if all of this wasn't already annoying enough—comes the part to take down the clothes from the drying rack. But of course it's paramount here to make sure that the laundry is definitely dry. This is also the part where my missus will criticise me:
- "You haven't washed this and that at the correct temperature."
- "Why did you mix this particular piece with the dark laundry?"
- "You haven't hung my shirt correctly! Why haven't you used a clothes hook?"
- "Why did my shirt shrink to half its original size?"
Oh and have I mentioned that you also have to fold the laundry and then put them in the wardrobe, which I always procrastinate because I'm so very fed up by then?
I really, really hate doing laundry.