Self Help

Doing laundry sucks.  Not like root canal suckage, but the kind of never-ending, weekend-killing monotonous suckage that drains the soul right out of you.  So if you are a human who is old enough to cook up a box of mac and cheese or have your very own Instagram account, and you do NOT have to wash your own clothes, then you need to adopt an attitude of gratitude real quick.

Along with that, I need us to agree to the basic terms and conditions for “someone does my laundry for me” privileges, with the full understanding that non compliance will result in your personal launderer/laundress going on strike and giving zero you-know-what’s when you run out of clean underpants.  ZERO.

RULES TO LIVE BY IF YOU WANT ME TO WASH YOUR DIRTY, STINKY, SWEATY CLOTHES

1. I wash the things that are in the laundry basket.  Not in the laundry basket?  Not in the wash.
2. Check your pockets.  We all know I’m going to check your pockets too, that’s like OCD 101.  But if I find something I will know that you did not check your pockets, and you will be subject to the rant about how “one pen/lipstick/hershey’s bar/piece of gum can ruin an entire load of clothes, and you don’t have enough money to replace all this stuff.”
3. I do not stick my hand inside other people’s dirty socks in order to turn them right side out.  Inside-out socks can go into the wash, however, inside-out socks - especially the ones that are rolled into little sock doughnuts - don’t get clean.  Your input, your output.
4. When you get out of the shower, you are clean.  So there is no need for you to use a clean towel every day.  Also, I am not fooled by your complicated “body towel/hair towel” rotation system.  2 towels per week is plenty.  If you insist on using 14 towels a week, you will be washing loads of towels.  
5. LIkewise, you do not need to change your clothes 6 times per day.  But I’m willing to overlook that, if we can all agree that a shirt you wore for 5 minutes goes back into your closet, not into the laundry basket.
6. I wash the clothes, I dry the clothes, I fold and hang the clothes.  All I ask is that occasionally you help a little bit by putting the clothes away by the end of the day.  Failure to put your clean clothes away will result the rant about how “I wash the clothes, I dry the clothes, I fold and hang the clothes.  All I ask is that occasionally you help a little bit by putting the clothes away by the end of the day.”
7. DO NOT EVEN be so lazy as to take your clean clothes that have been neatly folded and placed on your bed, and put them back into the dirty clothes basket rather than put them away. Not only will laundry privileges be revoked, but this week’s dirty laundry will be piled on your bed in protest.  
8. This.  This is grounds for immediate revocation of laundry privileges.
   

   
9. If you are asked to help out by moving a load from the washer to the dryer, please do not act as though you have been asked to harvest your organs.  
10. A little “Thanks Mom” goes a long way.