Tuesday 13 May 2008

Why a leopard never changes it's spots

I hate ironing. Well I say the word hate like its a chore I actually frequently endure, that seriously is not the case, not even a teensy bit close. I hate ironing so to rectify the situation I simply never iron. I am practically famous for my non-ironing.

I have a motto: If the creases don't fall out in the dryer I just don't wear it again......ever.

Very occasionally I'll break down and maybe iron a whole outfit, when I say occasionally what I really mean is if I'm going to a wedding or speaking in church, yep that infrequently. Fortunately I have a mother in law who along with the gazillion amazing attributes I listed previously also introduces her children to responsibility for their own ironing when they reach the grand old age of 14. Therefore Rob is a dab hand with an iron and can iron up his shirts etc real nice in half the time I could, that's if I could be bothered to even attempt it.

So today I turned over a new leaf as I frequently do (for a whole 12 hours) and decided something had to be done about the four enormous piles of my clothes that were folded next to my bed. These piles of my clothes have been there for so long they were actually starting to gather dust (I wish I were joking). They were piled as tidy as piles could be tidied until Thomas somehow managed to untidy my previously tidy piles (try saying that 10 times fast!). Until then my piles of clothing had been working just fine for me I could remove an item from the pile without disturbing or creasing (heaven forbid!) any of the other items of clothing. It wasn't an ideal system, I wasn't proud and yes I would be ashamed for anybody to go into my room and see my clothes in piles instead of neatly put away like a normal person would do. In my efforts to organise my clothes I came to the grim realisation that Thomas had managed to crease more clothes than I was willing to deal with in my usual decreasing method. My usual decreasing method is to rewash the already clean item and re-dry it in the tumble dryer and voila crease free clothing. (All without having to plug in an iron, it might use up a thousand times more electricity but that I can happily live with!)

I was left with one of two alternatives, only wear the 15 uncreased articles of clothing I had left for the rest of time or actually iron. So I made a date for myself this evening with our iron and got to it. Now the majority of my clothes are crease free and hanging in the wardrobe happy and crisp. I have zero piles by my bed (I'd forgotten how spacious our bedroom is!) but I have a renewed clarity as to how much I detest ironing.

Clearly I'll be waiting for four humongous piles of clothing to accumulate next to my bed and a preschooler to jump all over them before I even begin to consider another encounter with the dreaded iron. But in the meantime at least I'll look presentable.

3 lovely comments:

alisha said...

I thought for sure that in order to be a British you had to iron anything and everything including your underpants.

Heidi said...

Love, you have got to get Downy spray-on wrinkle releaser. I just spray it, smooth my clothes, and go. I don't look AWESOME, but at least I look presentable.

That's really all I can hope for these days . . .

AMY said...

This is EXACTLY why we got along so well! I despise ironing myself, in fact I'm sure on our mission I only ironed for Elder Holland! I do such a lousy job and complain so much, David doesn't even ask anymore. I think you are the only Brit I know that doesn't iron everything including their sheets and like Alisha said, underpants!