Ode To Laundry

This is a story that I wrote in 2017. It resurfaced in my memories, and I am sharing it here. A break from seriousness is often needed, and real-life stuff can be entertaining AF.

Note: my bio says I cuss, this story has cussing.

 

There isn’t a need to be technical about times, just the incidences that have occurred.

 

Laundry.

I love laundry.

I rock at laundry.

I love fabric’s softness, I love the detergents, I love Clorox 2. I love bleach for my whites.

 

Oh how I love laundry. I'm humming as I sort my laundry. I make my piles: colors, darks, and whites.

 

I grab a pile and make my way down the hall to the laundry room.

 

Did I mention we have wood floors?

 

Did I also mention, if you drop a sock because you are carrying your laundry in front of you and step on that said sock, you might slip a little, pull your groin and bump your weenis on the door handle of the closet?

 

I never understood why they call it the funny-bone because there is zero funnies happening when you knock the shit out of your elbow!

SWEET MONKIES UNCLE!

 

Still humming.

 

I still love laundry. Even though I'd like to take this sock, set it on fire, and laugh while it smolders and turns to ashes…but I digress.

 

Laundry time; turn on the water; add the detergent; dry one hand; add softener. Start the darks.

 

I go to my room; get on my computer; and see what’s happening in the world.

 

Turn off my computer…look at my piles of laundry and somehow feel a little better.

Turn on Discovery Channel and start watching Mythbusters.

Hear that washer has stopped.

Grab another load of laundry, and head down hall.

There will be no slipping involved this time... no sir.

I wrap everything in a shirt, carry it that way.

 

You would think I outsmarted the laundry, but it has another trick up its sleeve (no pun intended)in store for me.
Since I wrapped it all, and am still carrying it in front, I misjudged distance between hip, my foot, and corner of washer.

KA-BAM! SWEET MOTHER CHOCOLATE HAMSTERS!!! <insert cuss words in 94 different languages>

 

Washer - 1

Sock - 1
Shawn's body parts - 0

 

Open washer, and start putting clothes into dryer and try to ignore that amount of throbbing coming from my big toe.

 

Slam the dryer door shut.

Start Dryer.

Start a load of colors in the washer.

 

Walk back to my room with a gimp, throw myself on my bed, and my eyes start tearing up. SERIOUSLY?!? NO…nono naynay, no pity parties for me, thanks. Focus on watching Mythbusters.

 

Groin pulled.

Elbow sore.

Big toe might have to be amputated (j/k) but that MF is killing me!

 

Some time passes and I find myself sitting on the edge of my bed and all I can think to say is “what in the actual fuck”.

 

Washer done.

 

Grab the whites and grumble to myself, this fucking laundry.

 

Hallway, cleared.

Corner of washer, cleared.

 

Clear the dryer, fold clothes, and starting chucking the clothes from the washer to the dryer like they owed me money.

 

Bleach and Clorox2 for my whites, put them in the washer, close washer and go to the porch.

 

It’s chilly out. I light a smoke and listen to the wind in the trees. I’m in the elements but protected by the screens…or so I thought. I can see this little, tiny spider who’s just bungy swinging from his web, letting his body just sway in the breeze without a care in the world.

 

I see him and I take a step back to avoid any contact between him and my face. This is when the groin muscle reminded me that I recently hurt it, I lose my footing, and it’s like my legs are made of Jello…Fucking JELLO I say! I catch myself on the pool table, swoop myself up, and BAM…spider in my EYE!!!

 

I scream like a girl, smacked my own face to kill the spider, drop my cigarette, my eye starts to burn, dead spider but his web is stuck in my eyelashes. (MAN-DOWN, MAN-DOWN!) – <also, insert flailing>

 

I compose myself with a bloodshot eyeball. Pick up my smoke, take a drag, put it out, and completely resist absolutely breaking down at this moment in time.

 

Go back to the laundry room…this fucking laundry.

 

Take the colors out of Dryer.

 

Open the washer and start putting the whites in the dryer and there’s a gray sock…I don’t own gray socks – it was at this particular juncture that I realized it was originally a black sock. A black sock washed with white clothes, with bleach added would surely make it a gray sock now. And do you think that I could have accidently put two black socks in with the whites? Nono, naynay <insert this face 😫>

 

So now I’m having a face-off with this one gray sock, contemplating my very existence and if I even qualify for adulthood at all. If I had bleached both black socks, I could wear the gray socks, but now I have a gray sock and a black sock that will NEVER have a match to it.

 

One. Single. Gray. Sock. SONOFABITCH!

 

Finish putting the whites in the dryer, but not that gray sock, fuck that sock man.

 

No folding of anything at the present time. Just throw it all in the basket. “Ya’ll can sit there and rot for all I care.”

 

Shut dryer door. Lock up the house. Set the Alarm. Go to the bathroom.

 

Oh, so this is what we’re doing today – guess mother nature and my body got more jokes as I sit here realizing it’s that time of the month.

 

I just put my face in my hands and started to cry.

 

Get to my bedroom, turn on the fan, Discovery Channel on TV, continues to sniffle through my tears and snot as I turn off the lights and crawl in my bed. I’m so aggravated and restless that sleep is not my friend. I just roll to my side with the TV on, listening to the fan’s white noise and say outloud – One. Gray. Sock. SONOFABITCH!