According to Hofmann: Laundry list of woes
Sometimes when you really think about something and analyze the process involved with it, you begin to see its total lunacy.
Right now, I鈥檓 sure you鈥檙e filling in the blanks of things you鈥檝e found in your life that totally have no rhyme or reason when you stop and ponder on it.
While things like the tax system, gorillas learning sign language and photosynthesis certainly make the list, the process鈥搉ay, the barbaric ritual鈥搊f doing laundry should top the list.
If you think I鈥檓 wrong, then you never really thought about what goes into doing your laundry or never really thought of anything at all.
You know your clothes need washed when you glance at yourself in a full-length mirror and think you鈥檙e seeing a zombie, when you start identifying weird or weirder smells on your person, when your clothes adhere to your skin and start to become one with you or if you have a wife that comments on your hygiene and appearance 24/7/365/until the day you die.
The first step is to put your clothes in a laundry basket and haul the basket down to the basement where the washing and drying machines are located.
The second step is separating the clothes because you can鈥檛 wash whites with colors or darks with lights.
Also, what do you do when you have a white shirt with red stripes distributed in a way where there蘑菇视频 equal parts white and red? What about light pink undies that I鈥揑 mean, my ladies of the house鈥搇ike to wear? My stone-cold logical mind knows that pink is a color, yet my school-marm warm heart wants to put it with the whites.
I鈥檝e gone into shock after trying to think where some clothes have to go on their washing journey.
Speaking of the washing journey, you throw your piles of clothes into the washing machine and then have more decisions to make including, but not limited to, but also not specifically excluding: the amount of clothes to put inside to not overload the machine while not throwing only a few items in to waste hundreds of gallons of water to clean three socks, 32 cents and half a roll of Certs; selecting on the machine a light, medium, heavy and Andre-The-Giant-sized load; what washing cycle option you need to pick because they all look the same and if you actually ever need to use the little compartment for bleach.
Then you need to measure the amount of detergent you want to use depending on the size of the load of laundry and how much fun you had while wearing your clothes that need washed.
Following the washing, the wet clumps of clothing are then peeled out of the centrifuge known as your washing machine and then tossed into the dryer.
Now, the dryer would seem like a simple machine with a basic task much like your toaster or Apache helicopter, but much like your washing machine, there鈥檙e certain settings you have to be aware of like air-dry mode, regular mode or Arizona-desert-in-July mode.
To properly determine the mode for both the washer and the dryer, you have to pay attention to the labels on the clothes that you鈥檙e about to wash and dry.
For example, labels on some clothes have you wash on permanent press and dry on wrinkle shield, while others will have you wash on the gentle cycle and dry on tumble press and some garments require you to wash on normal cycle and dry on fluff air and then make a virgin sacrifice to a volcano god.
The other problem with drying clothes is that while it only takes about 20 minutes or so to wash clothes, it normally takes about 14 hours to dry that same load of clothes鈥揺ven in Arizona-desert-in-July mode!
So, yes, the drying part is what makes the washing/drying part of laundry seem like serving a long sentence in a domestic prison, but that蘑菇视频 not the only part of the laundry experience that needs analyzed for your protection.
In fact, there蘑菇视频 so much about the process that I have no more room in this week蘑菇视频 column to explore and must continue on for next week when I expect my three socks, spare change and half-roll of Certs to finally be dried.
According to Hofmann is written by staff reporter Mark Hofmann of Rostraver Township. He co-hosts the 鈥淟ocally Yours鈥� radio show on WMBS 590 AM every Friday. His book, 鈥淪tupid Brain,鈥� is available on Amazon.com.