Sunday is the day we do the laundry!

For so many years, I hated doing laundry. Every time a new person or pet joined the family, more laundry appeared. It’s the song that never ends. The war that’s never REALLY won because as soon as you think everything you possibly own is clean, the next day it’s as if it never even happened. If you care to continue reading, this is going to be a love letter to laundry; Consider yourself warned.

I fell in love with doing my family’s laundry after I learned to live by my value of gratitude. This happened around 2018 and happened to coincide nicely with the release of this commercial. It gave me an anthem and theme song to put with a routine I dreaded. It made sense to me to adopt Sunday laundry day and it went along so nicely with my newly discovered pain relief. I felt good enough to move around, lift things, stretch when my back hurt, re-up, and keep going. It kept my hands busy, I was able to focus on it because I had set the expectation with the kids that this is a time I’d be doing laundry and they adapted. Plus, it felt good to conquer that pile every week and know everyone was set for the next day. Don’t tell them this, but I only sometimes use Tide, even though I ALWAYS think of the song. It’s fine.

When I arrived at Highland Springs (August 2018), I arrived in a hospital gown after being transported from a hospital near Strongsville, OH. My husband was with me, and he was able to bring me clothes and toiletries because we weren’t sure how long I’d be there. The staff removed the underwire from my bra, shoelaces from my shoes, and after that I had several outfits to choose from, but my roommate, who arrived two days after me, didn’t have anyone to bring her anything. We were not the same size, but I had some leggings that were such that they fit us both (LLR,TC, IYKYK), so I gave her a pair and a shirt to go with it. It was as if I had given this woman gold. She had a whole different attitude toward me, toward herself, toward her situation. I was awake when they brought her into the room, but acted like I wasn't. She was unconscious and two staff members put her into the bed, removed her clothing, dressed her in a gown, and used a flashlight to scan her body for bruises, scrapes, injuries, and then left her there with me to wonder what the hell would happen when she woke up disoriented. I’m not saying they were inappropriate or that this isn’t commonplace, I’m just saying it was something I had never witnessed from 3 feet away. Jarring. 

In jail, I waited in a holding cell for approx. 5 hours before being moved to my block/unit/section, but didn't have any clothing to wear under the county clothing you're given. This was January 8th, 2020, and there was a woman who had been transported from NERC to Summit County for a court date/hearing. She was in the holding cell with me and we got to talking. She had layered up her shirts in anticipation for the transfer and she gave me one of her undershirts to wear under my clothes. It was several sizes too big, but it meant the world to me in that moment. NGL, part of me was like omg, does this mean I owe her something? Am I her bitch now? I just got here! 🥺 No. She had been through the system several times and was just extending some help. A lot of people I met were like this, but Aunt TiTi was a recovering alcoholic who regaled me with tales of boosting, what prison would be like, who to ask for when I got to where I was going kind of stuff. She had given up a child for adoption when she was 16, recently reconnected with her, and was so anxious to see her again soon.

In prison, during admissions/before you pop out, you are taken to the Quartermaster, in a single file line, and given a supply of clothing. If you have sizing issues, you can exchange it RIGHT THEN, so if you’re not sure, you better get over to the side of the line and try it on real quick, because they aren’t waiting for everyone to prepare for a fashion show. "Here’s your crap, scram", was the vibe.

For actual laundering, there were scheduled days that you put all of your dirty clothes or sheets into a laundry bag and either hung it at the end of your bed or dropped it off with your ID number and a container of soap + a dryer sheet inside. A few hours later, your clothes came back clean, dry, folded, and, depending on the soap you could afford, smelling “not like prison” for a few minutes. Crazy world, lots of smells doesn't even begin to describe it, ya’ll. 

But to all the laundry haters, yeah, you read that right. As long as you're not assigned to work in laundry, SOMEONE ELSE takes the laundry, washes it, dries it, FOLDS it, and brings it back to you. True, if they don’t like you they might give your soap to someone else. Let's say hypothetically, you don’t use a sharpie to put your ID number inside of your sweatpants because nobody told you that's a thing you needed to do, you might not see those sweatpants again until they're on someone else's butt strutting around in the day room, but you know what? Live and learn. 

Real quick, let me tell you about sweatpants. You’re given these elastic waist “pajama” bottoms to sleep in. The length and fit are irrelevant because they never match up. If they're not too tight, they're too short on one side, or some other weird combination. (Refer back to try it on THEN). The other pants you're given are comparable to the texture of what I'd imagine postal worker uniforms to be, maybe a little thicker. To get real sweatpants, you have to order them in a box. You have limited boxes you can order, so it's not a good idea to waste it on just one item. Many people save them and their family will order things around their birthday or holidays. If you've already used your boxes, and someone new moves in, who hasn't used their boxes, all kinds of negotiations and propositions become available for discussion. So, I bought my sweatpants for a pack of chicken. You would've thought the woman who sold them to me had given me gold.  They were two sizes two big, didn't have pockets like some of the ones you could order, but they were still warm from the dryer. Shopping: an addiction endorsed by prisons.

So, how did that make me fall in love with laundry? After regaining the privilege of shopping for, caring for, repairing, reselling, washing, drying, lint removing, stain removing, donating the clothing that my family and I wear, I saw things differently. I started making more conscious decisions about clothing purchases. I can tell you the stories behind every piece of clothing: how it got that hole, where that stain used to be, how I told them not use that paint while wearing this shirt!, how long it took one of my kids to grow into something I bought and put away... because I was able to be here to do the stupid laundry. It's easy when kids are little to go with fast fashion because everything rotates so frequently, but as adults, fast fashion is not it.

Granted, part of Family and Consumer Sciences focuses on sewing, sustainability, blahbobloblawblah, but I'm not kidding when I say I never taught a single sewing class. I took the required sewing courses for my degree, but I was not the one to volunteer to teach anyone to sew, unless they were fine with receiving a lopsided blanket.

I mention this because I want to acknowledge that I was previously inclined and had the knowledge/equipment to make this change, mentally. For one, I had a washer and dryer that worked. I haven't always, though. I remember throwing piles of clothes over my 2nd floor balcony apartment into my husband's trunk so I could go to the laundry mat... even though I had a washer and dryer IN MY UNIT that wasn't working. Or sometimes it was working, I had just gotten so far behind, I needed to do it all at once. Ugh. Then, if it's snowing... or raining, and if it's busy... and who knows what kind of mood people might be in at the actual laundry mat.

I understand laundry sucks, no matter what, but when SNL ends on Sunday mornings, I think back to watching it, without sound, on someone's tv from two bunk beds away. I think about all those people I met who are watching it at the same time as I am, and still having their laundry done for them. I think about the people who have made sure I had things I needed even when they didn't want to, I suck it up and do the damn laundry because, "Sunday is the day we do our laun-dray, 'ay, 'ay, ay!"

P.S.- Unless I'm just like, really tired, and sometimes I do it on Monday. And if you do some on Wednesday, Sunday doesn't take as long.