Dried

Weekends are my laundry time. It kind of has to work that way since I'm away from home Tuesday morning thru Friday evening. So the laundry starts Friday evening and usually goes on until Sunday afternoon, with the washing, the drying, the folding/hanging and the putting away.

It's a chore.

Add to that the fact that I have to pack clothes for myself and the girls each week, hoping to avoid the SAME clothes week after week after week, and it's time consuming, to say the least.

So there I was on Saturday, my second load of laundry just finishedn the washer, the first load dry in the dryer.

I put the dry clothes in a basket and move the wet clothes to the dryer. I turn the knob, close the door, press the button and ... nothing. I try all the previous steps again and still...nothing.

So I move the obviously still wet clothes from the non-cooperating dryer and take them outside to be hung on the line.

Saturday was one of those extremely hot days, one of those days where just breathing causes one to break a sweat. Yet, even with the hot humidity making the air so thick one could almost see it, there was a bit of a wind. More than a breeze, but less than a gust.

Anyway, now that the weather report from Saturday is out of the way...

I started hanging the clothes on the line that has stood in our backyard for the entire seven years we've lived in this house. This line has always been reserved for towels and sheets. But on this day... the only thing to escape the clothes pin was my bra. Yes, I hung my underwear out there, but I drew the line at hanging my over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder out on that line for the entire neighborhood to see.

I'd managed to get most of the clothes hung (this load consisted of at least fifteen pairs of size two toddler underwear...just picture how many pairs of tiny underwear were hanging from that line) when...it snapped. The entire line just fell down. I was just glad the grass needed mowed rather than having just been mowed because at least this way, there were no freshly shorn grass particles sticking to my STILL wet clothes.

I was obviously not meant to have dry clothes on this day. I took the thirty pairs of size two toddler underwear off the line as well as the three size three swimsuits, the several pairs of size seven pants and shirts, put them all back in the basket and lugged them all back inside.

And then I waited. What was I waiting for?

For Tom to get home, of course.

See...I attempted to go retie the line to itself but...that didn't work. So I waited. I knew, sweet little helpless woman that I am, that my man would make this all better, as soon as he got home.

And you know what? He did. Sort of.

Of course, he didn't arrive for a couple of hours, but when he did show up to save the day, he found some new clothes line in the garage, he hung it from the posts and voila! I had a clothes line.

The dryer? He did not fix. It appears to be a lost cause. So sad. But hey, at least it didn't die in February, right? Right!

Tom did ask me why I hadn't called him at the time all this happened. He said he could have told me where the new line was and how to attach it to the posts. "Yeah," I said, "but that would have meant I had to actually go into the garage and then back out into the sweltering heat. I figured it was better to wait and let you do the work and I'll just go hang those clothes now. So thanks."

I must say, we make a pretty good team.