RM column October 5th - Laundry Day

RM column October 5th - Laundry Day

I am having a bad day and it is all down to underwear or lack of. I should also warn you in advance that I am going to talk about knickers.

To explain the background to this rant, laundry day in our house is at the weekend, normally Sundays. Then one weekend I went to launderette and found little to nothing of the Young Wan’s washing, meaning another trip to the launderette would be needed just so at the very least she would have clean clothes for school.

The last thing I can handle is the thought of a day in work followed by two hours in the launderette in the evening. So when I realised that not only did I not have her school uniform to wash but there was little else belonging to her despite being asked a number of times to get her washing together.

I decided that the best way to enable her to be more organised with her washing was to make it her job. That is all well and good in theory but the reality has proved something else completely.
I will sometimes go down the road with her, help her pack the machines before I head off to get some shopping. By the time I have finished in the supermarket the washing has finished. So I either leave her to it or sometimes I will help her pack the dryers before heading home with the non-tumble dryer clothes.

The trouble is when I leave her to her own devices I lose clothes, predominately knickers, the mind boggles, or it would if I hadn’t discovered what has been happening.

I’ll pack up the washing which includes a week’s worth of underwear, only when it comes back I am often left with one or two pairs of knickers. This has had me stumped.

Sure over the years like socks, various items disappear but it happens over time and sometimes you only realise you haven’t seen a particular item for about a year. Clothes walk, I don’t know how, but they do.

However, the unexplained knicker loss is a completely different story altogether.

When I do the laundry the Young Wan is handed a pile of her clothes all categorised and neatly folded. I am not foolish enough to think that is how she would do it. But I would expect a certain amount of duplication.

Oh no, that’s not the way at all.

The fresh washing is left in a pile somewhere in my room, sometimes it is still in the laundry bag itself and sometimes it isn't even in either of those places.

So come Monday morning I go looking for underwear, only to find nothing. Seriously there have been times when I have sent down seven pairs only to have none come home.

I have been a tad freaked out by this imagining that I will someday walk into the launderette and there will be piles and piles of my knickers pinned to the noticeboard with a sign saying ‘are these yours?’.

So far though that hasn’t happened.

And I have just found out what was the story is. Aside from herself robbing particular knickers she likes, she also makes an executive decision on what she will wash and won’t wash; a dreadful move altogether.

What she isn’t washing she hides in her room. Seriously, I have found a pile of my clothes, including lots of knickers hidden in her room.

I think she believes that she will pull them out and include them in the next wash but of course, the next time the laundry has piled up again and it never happens.

So having just discovered the hidden stash this morning, I am at a loss, really and truly.

The only light at the end of the tunnel is the fact that we are moving house soon AND we have a washing machine, what joy of joys! No more will I inexplicably lose knickers and thank God for that.