Fluff & Fold

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My O.C.D. is a rather effective tool to get the laundry done around the house.

There's no such thing as starting the laundry and letting it carry over to the next day.

No way.

We get it started and finished all on the same day, and we get it done, brought back to the rooms and in my case, put back in the dresser drawers before the day is done.

When I talk "We" I mean my partner Sam and me.

And as I thought about the laundry on Friday evening as I was folding it, I also thought about the fact that I got away relatively laundry free for the first twenty years of my life.

My Mom was a machine.

She'd wash clothes just as soon as we got them off our backs, and perhaps that's why I'm so effective at it now. Poor Mom was washing eight people's clothes...the damn machine must never have gone off. And she did it all as well. She folded it an put it all away.

Mom had one interesting laundry rule too. If money was left in the pants pocket and it came free during the drying cycle...it was hers to keep.

We used to be sure to clean out the pockets.

When I went to college the laundry problem was now mine, but my freshman year my roommate Rosie found a deal for us. There was a kid who lived in the dorm. He'd come to our room, gather our clothes, and bring them back fluffed and folded for a small fee. I honestly think that kid washed our clothes for about five bucks.

I don't think I ever knew the kids name, but he was exceptional. We used to call him the laundry geek.

"Laundry geek is sniffing our underwear," Rosie used to say.

Who cared?

Now it's a bit more of a hassle.

Except I have an ally.

Sam is a good worker.

He gathers the clothes and usually gets it all started for me. He'll get that first load out of the dryer and bring me the basket to fold.

Together we get it all done in record time.

Of course, my beautiful wife, and Jake benefit from having a couple of O.C.D. Fuzzy's in the stable.

"What time is the dryer done?" I'll ask Sam from across the room.

"8:23," he'll say.

By 8:24 I'm folding it.

And Jake just laughs along with my wife.

"Someday you're gonna' have to learn to do laundry," Sam told Jake the other day.

"I'll never do it," Jake said. "And I mean never."

Here's hoping he finds himself a nice little laundry geek to save him from the task.

Cause God knows the two that are living here aren't going to follow him around.

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