There is nothing that makes a mother’s heart sing more than when one of her flock returns to the nest for a visit. When our college boy arrived, I all but jumped for joy. With a heartfelt “Yay,” I ran up to him with excitement as he said, “Bring it in for a hug!”
His brothers ran to greet him, his father was overcome with emotion, and the dog leapt into the air with happiness.
“I’ve really missed you,” I said with love.
“I really missed you too, Ma,” he replied. It was certainly a wonderful moment that lasted right up until he said the words that make every mother’s heart sink, shoulders slump and knees to go weak with dread: “I brought all of my dirty laundry home for you.”
Isn’t that a fine how-do-youdo?
He then defended this injustice by saying how busy he had been and how his dryer is subpar, following it up with, “Besides, nobody does laundry as good as you, Mom.”
Although I am not one to shun a compliment, being a good laundress is something I do not want to be known for, and I am here to proclaim it is far from the truth.
I can do laundry, but I am not good at it. I am not thrilled with the sorting, the prewashing or the second rinse — much less the folding, hanging and putting away. Laundry challenges me, humiliates me and of- tentimes tempts me to say a bad word as I call out to no one in particular, “For the love of Tide, why is this shirt with the dirty clothes when it’s still on a hanger?”
Worse yet is when I leave a forgotten load in the washer overnight. There are no bragging rights there.
Yet, I’m no weakling. After all, it takes a woman of great integrity to blindly stick an arm under a child’s bed to retrieve dirty socks. Only a woman with a strong stomach would dare bury her face into her children’s garments and sniff, and only a lady with nerves of steel would ever be brave enough to handle the contents of a postgame football bag.
I will say it for you: I have no one to blame but myself. I try to get them involved, but they have been known to wash the whites with the darks and the socks with the towels, and think nothing of tossing a pair of jeans in with the fine washables.
Their folding is subpar; forget about proper hanging; and they have been known to mate socks that aren’t even friends, much less a good match.
There’s just no beating this thing. For even when I think I’m winning, I often find that I’m still losing — for at any given moment, there are more clothes picking up steam as they make their way to the clothes basket.
Take a recent time, for instance, when I had worked long and hard, and I finally had all of the laundry done down to the last smelly sock. As I stood back and admired a clothes hamper that sported nothing more than a bit of sand, a gum wrapper and a solitary dryer sheet, the back door sprung open and my son stripped down to his skivvies.
While I stood there with my arms outstretched and prayed for inner peace, he gave me a hug and, in the wake of his showstopping entrance, left me with yet another load.
I dropped my arms, stood and stared at the hamper in disbelief. One minute, it was gloriously empty, and the next, it was full and coming into its own smelly existence. As I yelled around the corner for that kid of mine to get back in here and toss his own stinking stuff in the washer, another child ran through declaring that he had — and I quote — “Nothing to wear!”
I swear, some days I would give my left sock to live in a nudist camp.
As the college boy hauled his bags of garb to the laundry room last weekend, I commenced to sort and fill the washer. I then started the machine, walked away and left the load to sit overnight.
Who would want to be known for being good at it anyway?
Lori Clinch is the mother of four sons and the author of the book “Are We There Yet?” You can reach her by sending an email to loriclinch2010@gmail.com.