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[CortJstr]

The SO's sister Lisa is in for the weekend to celebrate the SO turning 30. We spent 3 hours taking Lisa to urgent care to find out she has a virus and there's nothing to do but wait. This is a girl who leaves piles of used tissues by the couch when she's feeling well.

[Doc]

isolated vomit storm

Isolated or not, this sounds like a bad scene.

Whenever I did my own laundry or dishes or whatever as a child, my perfectionist dad would tell me that I did it wrong and would re-do everything.

This sounds familiar, luckily now I live in a house where the washing machine doesn't get any hot water and don't have enough whites or money enough for laundry powder to justify more than 1 load a week. Yay!

[jay-ell]

My mom taught my brother and I to do our own laundry when we were youngish.  I learned younger than my brother, because he got a crash course at 17 to prepare him for college, and I hung around the laundry room and absorbed the knowledge along with him.  (That's how I learned most things as a kid -- waited around for someone to explain it to my brother, and pay attention.)  We weren't expected to do it all ourselves, but we were expected to know how and to help occasionally.  Same with dishes, dusting, vacuuming, etc. 

She started young with us, I guess, tailoring our household duties to our ages and abilities.  When I was four, I was in charge of folding my dad's handkerchiefs.  (Who uses handkerchiefs?  Middle-aged, frugal men with large Polish noses and allergies in the 1980's, apparently.)  I would also help set the table and load the laundry into the washer (once it was properly sorted).  As I got older, I could help fold t-shirts and socks, sort whites and colors, pour beverages for supper, and help stir the spaghetti sauce.  Mom never made it a "you must do X chores for me," it was always, "hey, want to help me with this?"  And she'd sit down on the living room floor with a basket of laundry and we'd turn on the TV and she'd get out the ironing board and iron Dad's shirts while I sorted and folded the socks.  It was a pretty cool way to handle it, I think, and I try to do the same thing with my kids. 

My son loves to help me do laundry, and I made a folding board out of some scrap cardboard and duct tape that he can use to fold his own t-shirts.  And my daughter can already amuse herself for half an hour just pouring the clean socks out on the floor and then dropping them, one at a time, back into the laundry basket. 

Back on the illness front: I got a prescription for antibiotics this morning and am looking forward to not feeling like ass pretty soon.  My kids, meanwhile, having passed their bugs on to us, are feeling great and running around like lunatics.  The boy IS going back to school tomorrow, so help me. 

[wombat]

And my daughter can already amuse herself for half an hour just pouring the clean socks out on the floor and then dropping them, one at a time, back into the laundry basket. 

Ah, fiendishly clever. Yeah, start 'em young.

You should write an article about this, I need to send it to someone, although it's really too late for her.

[AugustWest]

I think I got taught how to do laundry at 11 or 12.  On the scale of chores, laundry is pretty mild in my book.  I'd rather do laundry than wash dishes, say.  Or sweep.  I hate sweeping.

Now, since I am the lone male, I am the designated trash-taker-outer.  That kind of sucks.

[CortJstr]

I think I got taught how to do laundry at 11 or 12.  On the scale of chores, laundry is pretty mild in my book.  I'd rather do laundry than wash dishes, say.  Or sweep.  I hate sweeping.

Now, since I am the lone male, I am the designated trash-taker-outer.  That kind of sucks.

Where I come from "sweeping" or "running the sweeper" means vacuuming. Which I don't mind at all, except when somebody asks me to vacuum and that same person has left socks, magazines, and whatnot on the floor.

[lprkn]

I learned to do the laundry when I was 12 because my mom was bed-ridden for the 3rd trimester of my littlest sister's...gestational period. Anyway, I know my way around a laundry room and the various laundry additives out there. But I hate hate hate folding clothes. Something about the way the items sap all of the moisture from your fingers, and the never-ending, cyclical nature of the whole endeavor.

So my clothes are regularly washed, but they sit in laundry baskets until I wear them again. Sometimes being single is not so bad.

[jay-ell]

So my clothes are regularly washed, but they sit in laundry baskets until I wear them again. Sometimes being single is not so bad.

Yes...single...

Or married to someone who's as big a slob as you are.  That has its benefits, too. 

[lprkn]

The clothes-in-baskets thing is really my only particularly slobby habit. I keep the rest of the place relatively nice, and the clothes do get put away if people are over.

[CortJstr]

My SIL washes clothes then forgets about them for days at a time. Then she smells the mildew inside the washing machine and washes the clothes again.

[jay-ell]

I've done that.  More often than I care to admit. 

Never happened before I had the kids.  I blame them. 

[Mr Trout]

For those of you who don't immediately fold: How do you keep them from wrinkling? I feel like I must put my clothes away or else I look like I slept in them. I bought enough hangers for my shirts/****** since I can't stand folding them so the only things I really have to fold and put away are sweaters. Undies get shoved in a drawer by the handful and sorting socks really isn't that big of a deal.

What I do HATE though is the fact that my landlord removed the washer and dryer from the basement or my building. So now I have to lug all my clothes to the laundromat. It's a really nice, and the giant machines mean I can get 4-5 loads done in an hour but still, it's a huge pain.

[jay-ell]

For those of you who don't immediately fold: How do you keep them from wrinkling? I feel like I must put my clothes away or else I look like I slept in them.

This becomes less of an issue when you have kids, and your main qualification for an item being "clean" becomes, "without detectable odor or spit-up stains." 

Also, if you leave stuff in the dryer, you can just re-tumble it just before folding/wearing.  It's terribly inefficient, but one does what one must. 

[littlefallsmets]

Basically not caring if people judge you for a few wrinkles helps too.

[pmcd9]

Since I've been on my own I've always used the service that most washateria's provide.  It's worth the money to not have to spend hours in the washateria.  I had a washer/dryer when I lived in Utah so I did my own up there.  It wasn't a big deal to me.  I usually watched a movie while I folded clothes.