Tuesday, January 20, 2015

The Critical Mom Crusades for Socks

As any mother knows, doing the laundry involves crouching on the floor in bathrooms and bedrooms where the dirty laundry piles up in corners, and pulling the inside-out underwear off the inside-out blue jeans before dumping both in the hamper you're taking downstairs to the laundry room.  But before you get to cart all that stuff down to the laundry room, there's hauling the bunched-up socks from inside the knee area of the jeans, where they've burrowed down for the winter after the kid stepped out of his clothes.  Or sometimes they fall out while you're picking up the jeans and skitter across the floor as if they had legs, landing right underneath the used dental floss that is somehow dangling from the wastebasket and clinging to it for dear life.
So, memories of helpful hints from Heloise and others dancing through my head, I picked up some of those small mesh bags with zippers at Tchibo, intended for laundering delicates--or a load of socks.  Each child--and each has frequently complained I DON'T HAVE ANY SOCKS, MOM!  WHERE ARE MY SOCKS???--received two of these, plus instructions on how to place their dirty socks in them.  I even laundered a whole set of my older son's new socks in one of them, returning said socks to him clean, in the bag, and he was very happy indeed.  All three children have received two or three reminders from me about using those bags, which they seem most pleased to possess, and have even hung on their doorknobs.  But yesterday, today, and the day before, the socks have taken control again . . . .they're back in the knees of the blue jeans.  They're barricading themselves behind doors.  They're mobilizing themselves for an all-out attack again.   But still, I've always had a whole bunch of them cleaned and folded and piled up in a laundry basket in the guest room, although finding a pair that actually fits anyone in our family involves a major excavation.  
Socks of the world unite.  You have nothing to lose except your owners.

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