Freaky Friday

Andy is not so good at doing the laundry. He can do his just fine, but he seems incapable of reading tags and has messed up one too many of my things. So we've come to an understanding in our marriage that he isn't allowed to do laundry. It's totally my responsibility to make sure we have clean clothes to wear every day. Just like it's his responsibility to rescue me from gigantic bugs.

Doing laundry on crutches is not exactly an ideal situation, so for the past few weeks I haven't been able to hold up my end of the bargain. Andy has cranked out a couple of loads, but the majority of the laundry detail has been picked up by some of our very generous relatives. Most recently the laundry do-er is my mom.

She knows how particular I am since she lived with me for twenty something years and if she's unsure about a garment she asks rather than try to figure it out on her own. It's a good system we have worked out. I appreciate it a lot.

Still, it's not the same. Things get folded that are usually hung. Hanging clothes find themselves in drawers. Really the only problem here is that it takes us a couple more minutes to get dressed in the mornings. I'll take that over a pile of dirty clothes any day, and I can't say it hasn't been nice to not do laundry. At this point I'm tired of being useless and I'd love to go throw a load in the wash, but for a while I enjoyed having it done for me. (Thank you all so much. It can't be fun touching other people's underwear.)

Anyway, my mom came up to stay with me today. Normally Andy is on invalid duty, but he had some things he needed to take care of so my wonderful momma came to take care of her little girl. Generally to make sure that I ate and that I didn't stumble into something on my crutches and hurt myself further.

While she was here she did a couple loads of laundry; like she does every time she comes. As per our system she had several questions about our clothes. Can this go in the wash? Does this hang dry? Is this garment yours or Andys? I answered her questions, no problem, but there were several times when she would thrust a shirt on a hanger in front of my face to ask who it belonged to and my answer was, "That's Andy's and he likes it folded instead of hung." You see, I hang about 90% of my wardrobe when Andy folds about 90% of his. The only things he wants on a hanger are his pants and dress shirts. Everything else goes in a drawer.

Momma didn't seem to have a problem with this, she just went back to doing the laundry. But then something changed. She showed me another shirt on a hanger and my answer was the same; that is should be folded because it was Andy's.

There was something different this time. She didn't just jump back into action.

She stopped and looked at the shirt.

And then she looked at me.

And she looked at the shirt.

And she looked back at me and slumped her shoulders and screwed up her face and hopped up and down a little and said, "But I don't want to fold it! I hate folding shirts!" with something of a whine in her voice.

I swear to you I was looking in a mirror. I was looking in a mirror at myself ten years ago.

I stifled a laugh and told my newly adolescent mother to just bring me Andy's t-shirts and I would fold them from my position on the couch.

In the end I guess we were both happy. She was able to help her crippled daughter without folding t-shirts, and I was able to feel useful even though I couldn't do the laundry by myself.

It's too bad we couldn't compromise like that ten years ago.

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P.S. How do you like my new background? Festive, no? I've been jonesing for a cupcake lately, and also to get back in the kitchen to crank out something delectable. I decided that since I can't eat them right now I could at least look at them on my blog.