Saturday, June 28, 2008

Doing laundry sucks worse than your mother's X chromosomes.

As you may have gleamed from the title, I have neither clean underwear nor respect for you mom. Sitting here at work, I am currently wearing the last clean pair of boxers I own; these are the back-up pair for the back-up pair. Truly today is a sad day.

I think I now know how homeless people must feel when they look back at their lives, trying to figure out when it all went wrong and hoping to answer the question "how could this happen to me?" When I look back, as they so often must (as they probably don't have anything better to do, what with no homes and all) I see a slow progression in my life from clean clothes to dirty. I can remember a time when my cabinets were overflowing with a bounty of fresh textiles of all shapes, sizes, and colors; socks and shirts three drawers wide and as many deep, all manner of garment and leather wear hanging in the closet, and a seemingly endless supply of undershirts and boxers, just waiting to be worn. Those were the glory days: days without worry, when nary a second thought was given to the availability of unsoiled items, days when the idea of doing laundry was but the twinkling of a distant star, days of a building hubris, the rising action leading ultimately to the story's climax. But those days were not to last, and in this tale clean shit was not long for this world.
Continuing to think on the matters of days past, I can recall my filthy linens hamper filling at precisely the same rate at which clean drawers were being depleted, and with each passing day the prior continued to fill as the latter steadily emptied. Running ever lower on staple garments, I told myself each night before drifting off to sleep that tomorrow I must end this. I had to cut off the tributaries to this ever-deepening pool of clothing, lest it's tide swell wash over me in a wave sleeves, consuming both me and my bed in a flood of zippers and buttons. The damn was ready to break. Despite my nightly oath to trim back the vines of cotton and wool that threatened to choke the light from my floor and desk, each morning was met with procrastination and indifference, my desire to do other things time and again overriding my need to clean. The sword to my Damacles would remain hovering overhead for yet another day.
The climax of this story came today, as I was forced, for the second time in as many mornings (and not unlike the aforementioned homeless people) , to wear unmatched socks. Luckily for me and my dignity, the socks in question are both grey, and differ only in the brand logo on the side. The casual observer would hardly notice the difference, but still, the very notion is kind of shitty and not above derision. If I saw someone wearing unmatched socks I would think him or her foolish and/or a fucking idiot. I don't want to be that guy.
Anyway, now it's dénouement time, and armed with a metric ass/shit/dick/fuck load of quarters, some liquid detergent, and the knowledge that I'll never get laid with my room looking like Baghdad, I am finally ready to confront my demons and perform a Springtime Fresh Tide laundry exorcism up in this bitch.
Word
Also, I have included a picture of some dude's locker at work. Magnets are fun.