This one's for you Miss P...
Somewhere in my parenting I have obviously neglected to show you how to use a washing machine. I apologise. That is my failing as a parent. I am making amends with this post because when you move out of home I would like to think you might occasionally wear clean underwear. And that your expensive 1000 thread count white sheets aren't grey through lack of washing.
The best time to consider whether washing is necessary is when you run out of underpants or you are picking clothes up from the pile on your floor to wear. In public. That you wore yesterday. Or when I can't get any of my clothes in the massive laundry hamper we own which would accommodate the clothing of a family of 6 for a week because your stuff is in there. And on my laundry floor. For the last 10 days. Or when I cant find a pair of matching clean towels in the house from the 40 towels I own. Oh and Heads up ...wet washing doesn't dry when it's thrown on the laundry floor either. Unfortunately we don't have under floor heating. Bummer.
Another clue might be when Sir Edmund Hilary calls and says he and the Sherpa's will be right over because we have a mountain in our laundry that he saw on Google Earth images and he wants to come over to conquer it.
So here it is:
1) Open hamper and take clothes out. Or pick clothes up from stinking pile on your floor. Whatever. Put them in the washing machine. Your time commitment will be about 90 seconds.
See how this picture looks all sunshiny? That's because the world is happy you're doing your washing. Hallelujah.
2) Place powder in the powder holding receptacle. This will take about 15 seconds. And that's if you have to go looking for the powder. 5 seconds if you don't.
3) Shut door, select the cycle and turn the machine on. (Time commitment 15 seconds) Get Little P to help you if you're unsure. He's a whizz at turning the washing machine on.
The washing machine gods will release you at this point for a time period of up to 2 hours. Relax. They will summon you with a sweet melodic song when it's time to come and do Step 4. Wander away. Go on Facebook. Watch TV . Whatever you do don't replenish the toilet rolls, mop or sweep the floors or think about what you might cook the rest of the family for dinner because your head will probably explode. And I would subsequently have an apoplexy from shock.
4) When you hear a happy song emanating from the laundry , that's the washing machine saying " I'm ready - I've done the hard work , come and empty me ". Open the machine and throw clothes in the laundry basket. Tip: Our laundry basket is green. This is what it looks like.
5) Search for something that looks like this. This is a clothes line. It's 10 feet out the back door. You can't miss it.
6) Take clothes out of basket , take two pegs and hang your washing on the line like this.
7) Continue thus until the basket is empty. Now you have free time to do what you wish. This time will range depending on the weather from 2 hours to a week. Enjoy your free time. Go on Facebook. Watch TV. Your friend the sun will do you a favour and dry the clothes. Unfortunately the sun doesn't have arms so you will need to bring them in at some point. Then you can place them on your floor-drobe again. For the uninitiated, a floor-drobe is when your wardrobe is actually your floor.
This is so easy peasy trained monkeys could do it. Not that they'd have to because monkeys walk round naked. You don't. But you will be if you don't do some freaking washing soon.
This is so easy peasy trained monkeys could do it. Not that they'd have to because monkeys walk round naked. You don't. But you will be if you don't do some freaking washing soon.
Mr. P this is not for you. I learned long ago not to let you anywhere near the washing machine because at one point everything of mine you washed came out looking like it would fit Barbie. If you wanted to marry Barbie you should have made sure you looked like Ken. And that you came with a dream house, a dream car , and a dream boat. You are still officially banned from the laundry.
P.S. Miss P, the massive orange garbage bag full of clothes that need washing that you put in the carport and have been avoiding for 10 weeks is still there. If you leave it much longer those clothes will be out of fashion.
31 comments:
LOL! Thanks for the giggle. :o)
Thanks! I know you wrote this for my daughter as well!
Oh Mrs P I 've been down this road !!! Good Luck !
Cheers
Helen
LOL!! You are so funny, :0)
Sure could have used your laundry tutorial when my daughters were younger! I love it!
This is a great tutorial. I was laughing because I remember living on my own for the first time and deciding on which outfit to wear from the floor-drobe! I used the smell test! I usually took it all to my mother's house and she did it! Aren't you going to be a good mother and do that for your baby?
Hilarious! Thanks for the laugh to start my day.
This is hilarious. I am sending The Girl to read this lesson.
Can we do how to clean your disgusting pig pen of a room next?
My favorite is the sunshiny picture of the laundry hamper. Yes, the world is happy when you're doing washing. I think I'll go do some now.
xo -El
Um, I'm not too much better than this - I usually have quite a few piles of clean laundry in our laundry room - but, think how much exercise I would miss out on by not scurrying down the stairs to the laundry room to grab my clothing for the day!
I guess what I'm saying is: good luck! I wish I could tell you that it'll get better, but it might not :)
My favorite was the Sir Edmund Hillary. How do you come up with this stuff? You're very clever.
Hahahahahahahahaha. (Is your family still speaking to you?) My son would do his laundry when he was absolutely out of clothes and then try to stuff about 8 loads into only 2 loads, my washer has never been the same - sigh.
*LOL* Good tutorial. My son, who is still at home, does his own laundry but he likes to wear the same thing day after day so we still have the floordrobe problem. But at least he does it. He doesn't hang them though, he uses the dryer. My daughter did learn to use a washing machine but has always insisted she is terrified of irons because she might get burned. So she smooths her clothes out after drying them and manages to look presentable.
Mrs. P, that was the mother of all blog entries. If I was as irritated as you sound, and I have been over my kids' laundry, I would not have been able to post my blog for all the 4 letter words. Good luck with it.
Ewww, that orange bag has probably walked away by now. Luckily my husband is well versed in how to wash, he sometimes doesn't sort the way I like but I am not complaining. He gets quite stressed about the washing actually and if it I don't start it he butts in and gets it going and he is thingy (a nice way to put it others would say anal) about hanging the closes on the line. We have two extender lines under the veranda, you have to leave space for him to walk through and everybody's underclothes must be together ie mine in a row, the kids have a line each for theirs etc, I happily leave socks and jocks to him because I hate following rules.
I despair that I see my son turning out like your daughter with no laundry skills I am hoping the squid may at least try she at least likes to sort and help hang up the clothes so we might get there.
Ahh.... Mount Washme! It's often sighted in our laundry too. My Bradley often does the washing here. It's not ideal, and I would like to ban him from the laundry, but you know how teenagers like to wear clean clothes and with him washing there are very few complaints from the teenagers. (Quiet teenagers, my favourite kind!)
When the said teenagers don't have a particular item clean that they want to wear they come and ask permission to wash a load of clothes. (Can you wash a load? I wish you would!!!) I used to get excited at this and would enthusiastically encourage them to wash a load. (Or two!) Now I realise that depending which teenager it is they will either wash just one item ("I didn't know I had to wash more than that". "I know you told me to, but I didn't know you meant this time") or they will hunt through the wash baskets in order to wash a load of their clothes only. (Yeah, don't help me by washing someone elses clothes! It's not like I do anything for you!)
Good tutorial. Very informative and instructional. Not sure that it will affect Miss P's behaviour though. Good luck!
(I'm with Amanda. Forget the bag of washing in the carport. If it hasn't walked out on it's own already you could put it in a bin. Preferable a toxic waste bin. She'll never know!)
Oh dear....
you just make me giggle!
i'm with you about letting my honey near the laundry unless i DO want my good clothes gray or PINK (why this never happens to my junk clothes, i cannot understand and he just shrugs).
sigh.
This post is the absolute best. I could not have put it any clearer in our household, my speech would have been so much more colourful with little indents in the sentences showing huge gestures.
Really they just peeve you off sometimes don't they, what have we done wrong??
I remember when I was a teenager, there were still four of us at home and the washer and dryer run almost continuously. Mom wouldn't let us near it. So when I moved out, I didn't know things like 1) Don't overload the machine or nothing will get clean. 2) If you mix colors and whites your whites will be pale ugly colors. 3) If you forget the wash in the summer for more than 24 hours, your clothes will have mildew on them that can only be bleached out if they were white to begin with, everything else is a loss... which I would imagine is the state of the contents of the orange bag..
when my son asked if he could come home "for a while" when he was at uni(he moved out a few months ago after almost four years!)one of the conditions was that he did his own laundry.....which he did every couple of weeks (he has more clothes than any girl I know)...it only took a couple of lessons and he mastered the art of not putting whites and coloured things together..nothing like a pink T-shirt to put you off putting reds in with the whites! Putting the clean clothes away wasn't on his priority list though - I ended up with about five laundry baskets (like your green one) because they would disappear into his room with clean clothes in them...and were swallowed up never to be sighted again..well until he moved out when they all reappeared as if by magic...one of the other "rules" was that he keep his mess confined to his bedroom....he never quite managed that one!
Thanks for making me giggle...I just copied your tutorial, translated into germen and hung it up on our Laundry room door - who knows, it might help...never give up hoping!!
I highly recommend the use of tutorials as a motivator ....20 hours post post and 14 loads of washing have been done including the orange garbage bag. She even found my missing towels.
What should I address next ? How to mop a floor?
Poor Miss P, being picked on via blogging! I never did washing at home and I didn't leave until I was 24! And my Mum bless her has been known to come over to my house and do it here (but only when I'm away working).
I'm sending her to live with you for a week Shevvy. If you survive, I'll give you everything in my bank account and I'll send Little P over on the very next plane to join his Mum...
Ha!
I thought I only had three rules in my house,
No smoking (sorry but you would have to brave the garden),
No drugs,
No random strangers being brought back by guests.
But I now realise that also on the list is no kids as well!
AH HA! Now we know why you weeded the garden/patio area. You needed to make it easy to find the clothes line.
Slacker status re-instated. You should have just mentioned that up front and hey, you can always mistake that orange bag for trash if it hasn't been taken care of by next week. That method is doing wonders for my kids these days.
The Sir Edmund Hilary comment made me laugh, then I thought maybe I'd better make sure he isn't on my front porch waiting to conquer my Mount Washmore.
I've been trying to teach my son this for two years. Maybe I need to have him read your post.
Ha ha, love it! Thanks for the laugh, and that looks like quite the clothesline!
i can't stop laughing .... will be printing and sharing with the rest of the family at the appropriate time ....
Diva !
Another brilliant post, which will be printed out and given to bitchypoo. I have the same problem here. What is it with teenage girls who are obsessed with the way they look and what they wear, but don't give a hoot about keeping their clothes neat and clean.
That has to be the best post ever. I especially love this part "If you wanted to marry Barbie you should have made sure you looked like Ken. And that you came with a dream house, a dream car , and a dream boat." Love it!
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