I decided to wash some clothes today.
I suppose I could have washed on a daily basis, but then, with clothes that can be machine washed, why bother?
So I waited till the weekened to build up a load. Then of course, I took one guilty look at my special “Hand Wash” laundry bin and driven by the same emotion, got cracking. Just for fun, I picked up all the bottoms – the salwars, churidars, leggings, jeggings, jeans – in a bucket – every little matters! Later when the machine was done, I hung the clothes out to dry, after which I got on with the hand-washing.
I fondly remembered those days when you said you enjoyed washing my clothes during the weekends while I tackled the saris and starching them, remarking that they all smelled great while washing, probably because of the perfume and when out drying on the clothes line, looked so colorful!
That thought took me back even farther in time to those days in Madras when we would go to our terrace to hang out the clothes and also air dry our hair. By the time our hair dried, so would the clothes! And the saris looked so comic, all stiff with starch and ready to be ironed. What a project that was!
With so many options these days, I refrain from wearing cotton saris simply because I am too lazy to go through the starch routine. Miss the old dhobis – these days the laundry is so expensive when we outsource it! Even K charges Rs.5 per item just for ironing and of course has special rates for saris, based on the material.
So anyway, imagine my pique when I returned to the verandah with the three buckets of handwashed clothes! Hmmm. Dilemma. Not enough space to hang them all out. So after using the available space, I got the clothes hangers out and used those to hang some of the salwars. Mission accomplished in creating a mini dhobi ghat.
And? The punchline? No sooner than I bathed, had lunch and settled down than it clouded over outside and the rain poured down in sheets, thank you very much.
Ah well, it isn’t as if I don’t have indoor projects to tackle. Ha ha.
I am going to first just brew it, then just do it.
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2 thoughts on “The Wash Program”
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I’m a shocker for letting the hand washing pile up … but I rather enjoy the job of hanging the clothes out. I’m very fussy about shaking the creases out and then positioning the pegs just so… ( probably just revealed a little too much about myself, didn’t I!?) When we lived in Kuala Lumpur, I used hangers for most things due to lack of space. I brought that habit back…even though we now live on 4-acres and I have wash lines in two places. I think the way we do our laundry probably DOES say much about us… I have a totally unprovoked prejudice against those who shrink things and/or mix the loads so that everything looks grey and fluff covered.
I don’t think I’ve ever written that much about laundry before.
See how you set my tiny min ticking!
Wendy, I just fell in love with you all over again! Gosh, I am exactly like that! In fact, I go so far as to hang out similar colors together – kind of color coded you know. I would rather spend hours washing things individually than risk them bleeding color onto each other. Same thing with perfectly aligned corners and smoothed out sleeves. Hehehe. You’re a soul mate I tell you!