An Essay on Laundry
by Andrea Golding

There was a monster in my house….and by monster I mean a venomous, long haired, green eyed(well, actually one eye was green the other black but that’s beyond the point) sharp toothed beast. He was with us for as long as I can remember…Rexburg, Vegas, Seattle and Phoenix. I tried to lose him, believe me I tried, but he OWNED us. He slept upstairs in the washroom, but as much as I closed his door, or often as I pushed and shoved him back in his den he seemed to sneak his way into other parts of the house. I’d find chucks of his stale vile body in the boys’ room, a trail of his flesh in the hallway and streaks of him in the bathroom. Sweating and trembling I would scream out on the nights he made it into my dreams…nightmares. The dreams were the worst part. Worse than his smell. Worse than his dark rattling voice calling out to me. Worse than his warty face. In the beginning the dreams only came the night before wash day. But as time went on and our small monster grew and festered and multiplied the nightmares were routine…his thick legs of aprons and gym shorts chased me around the house, his dishtowel tongue stained with last weeks pasta sauce hung from his mouth – dripping slime.

Now in retrospect having been freed from this beast I know when he conquered our family. It all began somewhere in my early years of domesticity a “helpful hint” was passed on to me. I was young and inexperienced in the ways of domestic happiness and so I took this hint. It became my law. I wrote it on the tablets of my heart. The “hint” was to do laundry only once a week. “If you do it as needed,” the woman instructed, “you’ll spend your life over the washing machine. Just do it one day a week…trust me, Hon, this is for the best.”

And so it was…Wash day, a torturous affair in our house, came once a week. One day each week I battled that monster…I looked into his hateful eyes and challenged him. But there is no defeating stains that have had a week to concrete themselves….towels that have gone sour in their captivity. Victory is impossible when your opponent is an ever expanding pile of cotton, rayon and spandex. The day ends and your broken and damaged and alone – your family isn’t going near Voldemort( for that’s what we call him,) they’re no fools they’ve seen his hideous face and razor teeth.

What’s a woman to do…write a new years resolution, of course. You may laugh at this-you may think it silly to write resolutions for your laundry-maybe you should review my story-we were in a crisis folks! I threw out the helpful hint, ripped it from my heart. No more rules! I looked that monster in the eye three days early and started washing. “You can’t do this,” he screamed, slime sliding down his face. “Watch me!” I laughed a sneaky laugh, the laugh of a woman no longer tormented…Liberated.

He’s gone. I kicked his hideous face out of here. Laundry is a joy now, I wash everyday and I love it. Nothing makes me happier than an empty laundry basket, the clean smells of detergent wafting throughout the house. Hurray for New Year’s resolutions it was the best one I’ve made yet!