Piled High

Dearest Rachel –

It’s been so long, and I’ve had to do this for myself for these past five years, that I can’t remember what, if any, system you had regarding laundry. I know you separated colors from whites – every college-bound male is warned about mixing them and winding up with pink socks from putting them in with a red garment, so how much more so yourself, especially given your mom’s background in fiber arts and dyeing? – but apart from that, I can’t recall whether you insisted that Daniel and I perform the separation ourselves.

I also can’t remember how long you would wait, and how large you would let the piles of clothes get, before actually doing a laundry. In that way, you were something of a guy, but my memory might be casting you in too harsh of a light. I do remember some days when you admitted you couldn’t wash everything that was waiting to be done, so that suggests that I haven’t let things go as long as you ever would. On the other hand, the new washing machine doesn’t have an agitator in the middle, so I can stuff a lot more clothes into it on any given load, so it’s entirely possible that I’m as bad – or worse – than you ever were, as far as letting the work pile up.

Bear in mind that I have an advantage over you in that this represents only two people’s worth of clothes – Logan keeps his stuff up in his room, and does his own laundry, often when I’m at the ‘office’ or when Daniel and I are otherwise away from the house – whereas you had to deal with your clothes as well as mine and Daniel’s. So you can guess that this is the result of more procrastination that you could allow yourself, back in the day.

There’s not a whole lot I can say or do in the way of excusing myself for letting these things pile up. It’s not as if I’m required to spend time at the ‘office’ as opposed to taking care of whatever housework there needs to be dealt with. And when I’m at home in front of the bedroom computer setup, I could easily set everything to run on any given evening, and it would all have been taken care of long ago. I just never think about it when I have the time, and only think about it at times when I need to be somewhere (or when I’ve run out of energy for the day, and can’t bring myself to stay up to tend to the next steps in the process).

The only defense I can offer at the moment is that at this time of the year, I’m wearing two or three layers of clothes, just to keep warm. That, and I wear both gym clothes and street clothes in a given day, both sets of which need to be washed. So I could argue that they stack up a bit quicker on my end. As for Daniel, well… he wears layers all the time, so I don’t know that things are any different than during those last few years you were with us.

At least, with Kris being in today to clean the rest of the house, and my insistence on being home to make sure she’s paid as soon as she’s finished with her work (not to supervise her, I swear it), I’m staying home from the office. As a result, I’ll finally be able to take care of the laundry that’s piled so high in the corner of the room.

Still, now that she’s here – and more importantly, I’m here – I need to get on with this task. So I’m going to have to take my leave, with the usual wish for you to keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. After all, I’m going to need it.