Easy laundry

Laundry. It’s a thing. Humans leak at both ends, and there’s a lot of mess out there. My son managed to get mozzarella cheese mashed into the seat of his pants; the next day we harvested mulberries and stained another pair in the knees. With the help of soaps and scrubs, we got most of it out.

The thing is, I live in an amazing time when washing clothing is as simple as it gets: put in a mechanical tub with soap, tell it to wash and rinse, then put wet clothes into another mechanical tub and tell it to dry. The only simpler ways would be cleaning and drying all in one tub, or cleaning while it’s on my body. It’s theoretically possible to make clothing that doesn’t need cleaned, but I’m a mom; I know better.

We own more clothes than we actually need, partly because we have space to store clothing, and partly because it’s easy to clean a lot of clothes quickly. Limiting either one of those would limit how many clothes we could maintain. Polyester makes a huge difference, too. Natural fibers come with natural pests to eat them. Man-made fabrics don’t break easily, hold their colors and textures pretty well, and can be difficult to repair. Consequently they last nearly forever, and die suddenly when they do break.

What I don’t do, is specialty cleaning. No handwashing, no dry cleaning, no lay-flat-to-dry. There are a few delicate items we’ve used: nylon stockings, bras. And my husband used to dry clean his suit. But cashmere sweaters? Wool skirts? Rayon blouses? Nope. They’re outta here. Who has time for that when you can look good without the hassle?