Chores are Hard – Monday February 7th

I shuffled past the pile of laundry for the fifth time that day. Bleary eyed, nap-crumpled, I yawned noisily and kicked at the spreading pile on my way to the bathroom.

“You loser.”

I spun around and stared at the pile incredulously.

“What did you say?” I asked. The pile was silent. I slammed open the washing machine door and started shoving clothes in. I didn’t bother sorting colors or temperatures, just crammed the washer as full of the pile as possible. I added soap, pressed buttons, and felt satisfied to hear the water fill the tub.

A couple of days went by and I had forgotten all about the laundry. Then I heard a noise from the washing machine. It sounded like a voice- like a muffled, mocking voice. I gathered my courage and peeked under the washing machine lid. The old pile of laundry was crusty now and pressed against the sides of the tub. “Goddamnit,” I thought “I forgot to dry this stuff”.

“Pshhh. Idiot” I heard the pile say.

“What did you call me?” I yelled into the washing machine. No reply. My dog came out of the bedroom to investigate the commotion. She gave me an irritated look for disrupting another nap. If you nap all the time, you can’t really get mad at people for interrupting you, but she’s very demanding. She lay back down near my feet with a pointed sigh. I put a little more soap in the machine and pressed START again. An hour later I rushed over and stuffed the clothes into the dryer with great satisfaction.
“No pile of laundry is going to call ME an idiot” I told the laundry. I fell asleep to the rhythmic hum of the dryer.

When I woke up I had to rush around and get ready for a party. There was no time to consider judgmental laundry or confrontational dust-bunnies or my coffee table besieged by crumbs and half-empty glasses. I had to leave my apartment, and that takes a lot of effort. It wasn’t until I needed matching socks that I was forced to consider the dryer. “F*ck it” I decided. I wore tights.

Then next day I woke up and went straight to the dryer. I pulled the now-cold-but-clean pile out and dumped it on my couch. The light of the television winked merrily as I carefully folded sheets, towels, jeans, mismatched socks, tangled underwear and bras and jeans. The normally segregated clothes had fraternized in the washing and drying, and were left a little pinker and a little dingier because of it. I stacked the clothes in neat piles and sorted the piles according to drawer placement, then sat down to appraise my work.

The laundry, no longer a pile but a proud stack, said nothing.

I intended to put the clothes away that day, but you know how it goes. The minutes melt into hours which slog into days and the next thing you know it’s Wednesday and You’ve been getting dressed in your living room because that’s where the clean laundry is. A couple more days went by and the stacks dwindled until only clean sheets were left. I hauled them into the bedroom and after displacing the dog again and whining to my husband for help, I changed the sheets. The old sheets topped the pile of dirty clothes swarming around the laundry machine. The scene looked eerily familiar, and I began to fear the pile again.

More days went by. The laundry pile became a laundry hill, then a laundry mountain. There was an avalanche and the dog took to napping on the remnants of the pile. I ignored it and listened to NPR in the bathtub and lied on the living room floor with the dust bunnies and read books. Then I heard it again, clearer this time, “You loser.” The voice was coming from the pile. I looked over my book and stared at the mass of dirty clothes. “What would your mother think?” It sneered “What would your mother-in-law think? You’re pathetic.” The dog got off the laundry, looked around suspiciously, and joined me in the living room. I got up, kicked all the dirty laundry into the closet and pulled the door closed. “I think both my mothers would still be proud of me, asshole” I said to the laundry as I squeezed the door shut in it’s face.