Hang This

My wife's clothes are a pain to clean. That's just the reality. It sucks doing her laundry. You know why? Because I hate hanging wet clothes. That's it. That's my big reason. It's not even the time factor. I can deal with the fact that it takes an extra five to ten minutes out of my day to hang them rather than just throwing them into the dryer. It's that I'm having to touch wet clothes.

Not just touch them, but shake out the wrinkles, then turn them right-side-out, then put them on a hanger. It's a lot of wet-clothes-touching.

When was the last time that you had to deal with wet clothes? You didn't like it, did you?

First, they're wet. Second, they're inside-out. Did you know that clothes wash better inside-out? I didn't. But now I do. I'm a label reader. I've even read parts of some book I bought my wife from In Style magazine, something about being a stylish woman. Anyway, one part says that clothes wash better inside-out. So now I'm turning both of our clothes inside-out. But you know what you have to do to hang them up? Turn them back again! Otherwise, you're hanging wet clothes, then drying them, then taking them off the hanger and turning them right-side-out. I'm certainly not going to waste that kind of time just because I've got some silly issue with wet clothes.

So now I've got this whole system down on how I hang shirts and pants on hangers, then hang them on door frames. I space the clothes evenly so that air can surround them to dry efficiently.
For a while I got all hang-clothes crazy. Everything had to be hung. I was this close to putting her thongs on hangers to dry. I was re-designing my laundry room in my head; visions of efficient clothes-lines running across the ceiling; front-load washer and dryer with a custom-built folding table over top of them; a steamer! What joy! It even crossed my mind to get rid of the dryer. Who cares? Saves me on my gas bill. Eco friendly! Plus, gas dryers are expensive!

But wait! It turns out that my clothes respond better to the dryer. That's right. While a moment of drying any of her shirts or pants (pajamas notwithstanding,) my clothes not only don't shrink, but they feel perfect. I tried hanging things up - polos, t-shirts, jeans. Actually, t-shirts are fine. But, my polos come out wrinkled and feel like rough cardboard. Jeans don't feel all nice and snug. It's a conspiracy.

Occasionally, one of her items accidentally makes it into the dryer. I try to hang it up and hope that she doesn't notice. A few days go by and I start feeling safe. That is, until I wake up to groans of anger at 5:45am. She's found that the exact top that would go with the pants that fit her properly on that particular morning has somehow shrunk. Then I'm briefly annoyed that she woke me up over this trivial fact. Then I realize that she's already up at 5:45am and probably not thinking 100% rationally. She's not the one who gets to go back to sleep. Then I feel guilty for getting annoyed with her and probably saying something smart. Then I feel guilty for ruining her top. Then I get pissed at the $50-100 I'm going to have to spend to replace the thing. (I won't mention that she's got three other tops almost exactly like it. Logic has no place in this arena.) I'm certainly not fool enough to put her jeans in the dryer. That would cost me two months of golfing. F*&^ that.