Dirty Laundry

This has been a lousy week and I’m going to tell you why. But believe you me…it’s going to be rocky. Why? Because when I suffer, we all suffer. Deal with it.

Three weeks ago, the newf did approximately 273 loads of laundry in preparation for the vacation where, let’s face it, we both wore bathing suits and bathing suits alone, occasionally swapping in t-shirts when sunburnt and/or dealing with gastrointestinal trauma. A bloated gay is a gay that needs full coverage.

The laundry situation, like most household tasks, is a tricky one chez The Rollercoaster. You see, without traditional gender roles, it becomes increasingly difficult to force chores onto your spouse based preconceived notions of ‘girl jobs’ and ‘boy jobs’. In fact, we have both been known to play the “but YOU’RE the man” card when it comes down to things like shoveling the driveway (my job), mowing the lawn (his job), or investigating bumps in the night (Calvin’s job).

It would be so much easier if we had something to fall back on like, “but you’re the WEAKER sex – I handle so many other things so you don’t have to worry your little head about them. So be a dear and wash the dishes? I’ll be in the bedroom waiting for you to service me when you’re through. Kisses.”

Not even biblical and historical arguments are holding up anymore. Assuring the newf I will stone him to death in the town square should he continue to avoid taking his dishes one step further, from the counter to the dishwasher, has yet to yield the results I’m looking for. And really? I believe that blatantly disrespecting the presence of a perfectly good dishwasher like that merits a good public demise.

Which reminds me of a good joke…anyone know why brides wear white on their wedding days?

…nevermind.

How all this ties into the lousy week? I’m getting there. Don’t rush me.

So when it comes to laundry, we have come to the agreement that it is HIS responsibility to transport dirty laundry from the bedroom, to the laundry room, facilitate the wash and dry, and then dump the clothes in a central location where it becomes MY responsibility to oversee the folding and distribution process. Coincidentally, this central location is also where the compromise tends to fall to itty-bitty, passive aggressive pieces.

A few laundry cycles into this compromise, I began to realize the imbalance in the division of labour. Moving clothes en masse three times, takes far less energy, attention and time than the process of individually folding each garment. I worked retail, bitches. We’re talking folding-board, geometrically perfect squares and rectangles here, bitches. And that’s just for the thongs.

Where a reasonable human being would reopen negotiations to restore the proper balance, I simply ignore the issue, often letting clothes build up to the point where the newf and I reach an all too familiar stalemate: he tortures me by leaving the house looking like an idiot (“Hey look! This brown sweater and these brown pants are the exact same colour. That means they match! Can’t wait to tell everyone you dressed me!”), I pretend he looks just fine and not at all like a giant poopturd. Then I covertly sneak down to the clothes heap at night and refresh the contents of my delicates drawer.

You know…like any mature and rational adult would.

But he’s onto me. Sneak though I might, he has left all of my underwear unwashed in the laundry hamper -yes-we-have-a-hamper-and-no-i-don’t-want-to-talk-about-it-and-yes-it-has-’LAUNDRY’-embroidered-into-the side – and I have officially run out of all standard undergarments. What does that mean? Well…for starters, I have spent every day this week wearing underwear that I’m not proud of.

Trust me, nothing ruins your day more than having to wear gag gift briefs that turned out to be even funnier when they arrived in the mail made of some physics-defying, sheer poly-blend that makes your junk look like that weird seed goo stuff that tadpoles come from which doesn’t even make sense because frogs aren’t PLANTS – they shouldn’t come from SEEDS. Frogs are some weird land-fish, jumpy-bird thing and should come from an egg like the embryo phase of Yoshi from Mario and now I’m talking about frogs and science and Nintendo and that’s just another side effect of the weird underwear I currently have on.

Now multiply what you just read by five days, swapping in various uncomfortable styles more suited for rent boys and Ricky Martin and you’ll come close to understanding the hidden trauma of the past week.

Why do I have a minimum of five slutty pairs of underwear, each offering varying degrees of inappropriate exposure yet impressive lift? I was single once and they were absolutely worth every penny. HA. You just pictured me in a jockstrap, didn’t you?

Hi family. And coworkers.

Let’s not make eye contact for a few days, kay?

I promise…this situation will be resolved over the weekend. The newf’s about to break – I just know it.