Kick Em When They're Up

Before more questions about laundry, some answers.

In general, the main difference between my mother's and my approach to laundry can be summed up thusly: My mother loves to do laundry, I do not. I don't hate it, I just don't find great joy from laundering and ironing stuff.

First, on towels: My mother is a wash after each use woman, except when she's staying at a hotel that posts those little placards about re-using your towel. Then she feels like she has to re-use her towel and it makes her all skeevy. I change my towel on a very precise "every once in awhile" schedule. Result? My mother's bath towels wear out 1,000 times faster than mine. I don't think she's any dryer than I am after a shower, but she might be cleaner - aaaaaand now I'm thinking about my mother getting out of the shower and I'm going to blame you for that.

Moving right along to sorting. My mother has a system for pre-sorting laundry. She has three bins outside the bathroom: one for lights, one for darks, and one for . . . well, I'm not sure what the other one is for. Towels? Reds? Dad's Everyday? ("Dad's Everyday" is a category my mother uses to describe my father's work clothing. These items are likely to be full of paint, sawdust, mud, or whatever; and are washed together no matter the shade.)

This uncertainty over the third bin was a great source of confusion for me when I was growing up. It was compounded by the lack of labels on the bins. Which one was for darks? The one on the left? Or was that for lights? I tried to use what was already in the bins for a clue, but OHMIGOD, WHAT IF THE BINS WERE EMPTY? (Which they were a lot, because my mom loves to do laundry.)

Worse, what if my brother had gone before me and it was his laundry already in the bins? He was even more clueless about the system than I was. And what if the item was soiled? Was it dirty enough to be laundered with Dad's Everyday? My little teenaged self couldn't deal with all the drama – or maybe I was just abundantly lazy – so I eventually adopted my brother's method of dealing with Mom's bins: Ball up all your shit and throw it in the middle bin. PROBLEM SOLVED.