Laundry

Last time we all got together, my brother wondered aloud to my mom, "why would anyone hang laundry out to dry anymore? When we bought our dryer it said that it only costs 10 bucks to operate it for a year!"

I must say, he's got a point. Why would I bother for just 10 measly dollars a year? Not even that, because I don't hang my laundry out when it's cold or rainy. But any chance I get to hang it out in the wonderfully warm sunshine I do it. I do it for that smell, that clean air-dried smell that you just can't bottle. I do it to get outside for a prolonged time twice (or more) per week. And I do it for the visual effects. See picture. What's more appealing than the color blocks of clean laundry, flapping in the breeze? And when you have clean sheets and clean pajamas that have both been dried outside, it's just pure bliss.

When I was a kid, I remember my mom getting after me because I hadn't hung the laundry correctly. "You didn't hang the shirts with shirts, pants with pants, underwear with underwear!" I asked, "why do you need to do that?" She thought about it for a minute and said, "I don't know. I suppose because that's how I've always done it."

I think that it's the way she did it because that's what gives her pleasure. Just how I get after Hibi sometimes because she doesn't hang shirts upside down like I do, or she bunches them up so they won't dry as fast. I'm trying to bite my tongue and let her have her own laundry pleasure.

I like putting up each load in a block, and then when you have loads side-by-side, you see this color block. I think that's pretty cool.

Some odd pleasures just can't be monetized.