Item #47 on my wife's list of reasons why I don't deserve to be married is the statement "he can't put half his clothes in the laundry after he's worn them."
Ok, so maybe that list doesn't really exist--at least on paper.
Anyway, I've explained the issue many times, with logical reasoning. Yet she still gets upset with the dirty laundry, or so she mistakenly calls it, that piles up in front of my dresser or on the closet floor. But the problem is not with me; it's with the system.
Since the introduction of the washer and dryer into the average American home, the domestic process has dictated that once you wear something you should put it in the laundry pile to be washed. Dirty clothes go in the hamper; clean clothes go in the closet or dresser drawers.
My wife--and as she claims, the rest of civilized society--sees no middle ground between clean and dirty. However, to me it's not all black and white. I see a large gray area.
Before I found a reasonably effective deodorant, pretty much every shirt I wore was a lock for the wash. But now that I'm staying dry for longer periods of time, a few shirts come off me at the end of the day with a little more life still left in them. They may be able to go another half a day, or even more.
Where can a shirt in such a classification go? It isn't clean, so I don't want to put it back on a hanger in my closet. It isn't dirty, so I don't want to put it in the hamper. It's in the gray area, and thus it is homeless.
To my wife's frustration, it ends up on the closet floor where it will remain until I can find an appropriate time to utilize its remaining life.
That's why I created the halfway hamper. It was a large bin for me to throw gray-area clothing into. It was a pit stop for clothes halfway through their wear-and-then-wash cycle.
Unfortunately, my wife found out about my clothing's midpoint and secretly began emptying the whole thing into the wash on laundry day. It hurt; my wife was washing the clothes from my halfway hamper behind my back, despite our relationship built on trust and integrity.
Now I'm going behind her back in publishing this post. My hope is that this article will inspire the halfway hamper's use in more homes until one day I can tell my wife we're not with the times by not having one.
Until then my clothes are getting washed excessively. Please help.
Ok, so maybe that list doesn't really exist--at least on paper.
Anyway, I've explained the issue many times, with logical reasoning. Yet she still gets upset with the dirty laundry, or so she mistakenly calls it, that piles up in front of my dresser or on the closet floor. But the problem is not with me; it's with the system.
Since the introduction of the washer and dryer into the average American home, the domestic process has dictated that once you wear something you should put it in the laundry pile to be washed. Dirty clothes go in the hamper; clean clothes go in the closet or dresser drawers.
My wife--and as she claims, the rest of civilized society--sees no middle ground between clean and dirty. However, to me it's not all black and white. I see a large gray area.
Before I found a reasonably effective deodorant, pretty much every shirt I wore was a lock for the wash. But now that I'm staying dry for longer periods of time, a few shirts come off me at the end of the day with a little more life still left in them. They may be able to go another half a day, or even more.
Where can a shirt in such a classification go? It isn't clean, so I don't want to put it back on a hanger in my closet. It isn't dirty, so I don't want to put it in the hamper. It's in the gray area, and thus it is homeless.
To my wife's frustration, it ends up on the closet floor where it will remain until I can find an appropriate time to utilize its remaining life.
That's why I created the halfway hamper. It was a large bin for me to throw gray-area clothing into. It was a pit stop for clothes halfway through their wear-and-then-wash cycle.
Unfortunately, my wife found out about my clothing's midpoint and secretly began emptying the whole thing into the wash on laundry day. It hurt; my wife was washing the clothes from my halfway hamper behind my back, despite our relationship built on trust and integrity.
Now I'm going behind her back in publishing this post. My hope is that this article will inspire the halfway hamper's use in more homes until one day I can tell my wife we're not with the times by not having one.
Until then my clothes are getting washed excessively. Please help.
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7 comments:
Let me just say that I am a HUGE fan of the halfway hamper. Mine is currently still the floor, but in any case, it is something I use all the time. Since I now live in a place where I have to pump quarters into machines to do my laundry, I seek ways to extend the life of all my clothes and using a halfway point gives me a solid extra week or two before doing laundry.
I also own a halfway hamper and fully support yours; though I can't reveal its location because I'm not the only one in my marital unit that reads this blog.
That deoderant line was priceless.
Ross, just live by this credo: Wear it once, wash it twice. You'll be a happy man, and your wife will thank you for it. This advice doesn't apply to everyone, but in your case I'd recommend it.
Maybe I'm gross but I too try to avoid over washing my clothing. I think it wears them out. So I hang or fold them and put them back where I got them. Now maybe that is gross to some of you but I tend to change out of my normal clothes into some ball shorts and a large t-shirt as soon as I can. So those clothes aren't dirty much at all and usually at least 1/2 good or even 3/4. Being as that I wear them for less than 1/2 the day, they are good for at least one or two more times of wear. Underwear are in a whole different category though. Let them be washed!
If you know me at all then you know this post is right up my alley. Even with underwear, two days? No problem. Plus deodorant products have come a long way, even if your stranded you can always use the hand soap in the pits trick like I used to do at Stake dances. Props to the Halfway Hamper.
Sorry, Ross. I'm with Megan on this one. No clothes on the floor.
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