Wash Day

 

I was talking to my daughter on the telephone this morning and asked what she was doing.  She replied in a not so joyful voice, “You know the usual, washing clothes.”  I told her that sounded exciting and she informed me in a sarcastic voice, “It is great folding whites.”

                Its not that she was complaining, it was just something we all do.  Washing clothes at home is somewhat of a chore and defiantly not as exciting as the TV shows which never show anyone washing and folding clothes.  They are too busy solving crimes going to parties or just having fun.  I did comment the other day to my husband that I never see the stars working a boring job or cleaning their spotless house.

                I suppose I look on washing clothes at home different than some others would.  I remember as a little girl going to the Laundromat.  I don’t remember if our washer was broken or we didn’t have one.  We would load up the clothes, usually a week’s worth into the car then unload it into the big rolling carts at the Laundromat - then sort and load into the washing machine.  Hopefully you didn’t have to wait for someone else to get done with the washers.  Then came drying time, by that time you were thinking of all the things you could be doing somewhere else.  Then folding the laundry and putting them back into the clothes baskets to load back in the car and take home.

                I lived for 6 years off the grid.  The only electricity I had came out of a small and I mean small generator.  I used a washer almost identical to the above picture.  I couldn’t have a larger washer because the motor on the washing machine was too big for the small generator.  Do you know buttons get ripped off or crushed while going through the wringer?   

                Maybe that is why I look upon washing clothes in my wonderful electric washer at home as a privilege.   Not that there are not other things I would like to be doing, but that what I am doing is a luxury you might say.  So the next time you are doing your wash in your shinny electric machine at home, think how very lucky you are…