Things That Went Through My Head While I Was Hanging the Laundry Outside to Dry
I did five loads of laundry today. For reasons that should be obvious (I live in the desert. It was approximately a thousand degrees outside today. Just for starters.) I hang the laundry outside.
It is clearly a good idea, and the woman who lived here for the fifty-three years before we moved in also apparently didn't use the dryer much since she left a clothesline in the backyard and in the little shed thing that holds the dryer. Just the dryer. The washer's in the kitchen. I already have to walk outside to finish the wash, so it's not that much harder to hang it.
So, here are some of my thoughts on hanging the laundry outside. I fried my brains (also: my feet. They still sting.) doing so and those two paragraphs up there are all my coherent thoughts... so, you get a random-assed list.
What am I doing out here on the same day I got an eye exam? Why is the RV pad so goddamned white?
I can totally hang the clothes to dry with my eyes closed.
Oh God. My grandfather-in-law was here and he was in the back yard and my underwear were hanging out right here just in line with the back door!
If that dog eats Drew's socks while they're hanging there, after I already washed them, I really will tie her to the train tracks.
I think my feet are on fire. How long will it take me to learn that you don't walk outside barefoot here?
I'll just stand on this nice wet dishtowel. So, I have to wash it again. That's better than maiming myself.
I think I just steamed my feet right off my legs.
It's been, like, two hours and my feet still burn. I will not go to the hospital because I was too stupid to wear shoes on my own RV pad.
They will, they'll have to, mention that you're from Kentucky when they're making the jokes about you and your burnt, steamed bare feet and outdoor laundry on morning radio.
My mother will kill me dead if I make the national "offbeat" news for not wearing shoes while hanging my laundry outside.
WHY ARE DREW'S CLOTHES SO DAMNED LARGE? I could fit a million of my garments in the space one of his t-shirts takes up.
I wonder what the look on his face will be when I say calmly "All your underwear is clean. It's hanging in the backyard. You socks too." when he gets out of the shower tomorrow morning.
WHY can't he just wear flimsy clingy tiny clothes like I do? Why are men's t-shirts made out of such water-absorbent fabric? It's hotter than the surface of the sun here. WHY AM I WASHING LONG SLEEVED SHIRTS?
Note to self: Do not launder towels with anything else if you're not planning to put them in the dryer so it can remove the lint.
If these clothes have lost as much water as I have since I've been out here, I am going to have to just bring them back in before I get them all hung up.
Is that spot just not burning hot or is it also damp?
All the nerves in my hands are now shot since I touched that black t-shirt.
I want a handwritten thank you note from Mother Earth for what I'm putting myself through out here. I want the temperature of this God-forsaken Valley to go down two degrees thanks to me standing on the RV pad overloading my drying rack.
I wonder if everything would dry faster if I just laid it out on the cement? I bet I have enough clean blankets to make that happen.
The whole point of the rack on the pad is that it's less likely to be shit on by birds. Spreading them out like that, even on blankets, would a) cause your husband to declare they're not really clean, and b) invite birds to shit on them, or at least a naughty puppy to drag them around the yard.
Fucking dog. I can't believe I went to the trouble to wash both a sock that is now more a leg-warmer and a pair of underwear that is now just a belt. I am not hanging those up to dry.
It really is true that the cheaper towels do not air dry as soft. The dog is going to cry the next time I try to towel her off. These are like sandpaper.
I am so brilliant! I am so happy that I remembered to give myself a break! Three sheets that just go on the line! Easy peasy!
Four loads. There are now four loads of laundry on the rack. Why isn't anything drying?
Because it's really overloaded.
Maybe the clothes are dry and it's just that the underside is less hot and I can't tell the difference anymore.
Would it really make any difference if I took it off and folded it? I just keep leaving the basket of dry clothes right next to the rack.
Hanging clothes can just go back in the closet even if they aren't completely dry, right? I wouldn't wake up with a nosebleed quite so regularly if the bedroom had any level of humidity at all...
Who are those people who underload their washer? You're always hearing about them in PSAs. "Only wash whole loads of laundry."
I probably should try to find some middle ground here. Something between "the weight of the amount of wet clothing I put in the washer is going to ruin my back before I get to the stupid rack" and "Two socks and a dishtowel"
You'd think things would dry awfully fast seeing as how they're sitting on a giant concrete frying pan. The heat coming off the ground alone ought to be enough to dry some socks quickly.
My feet really hurt.
Why am I worried about the sun going down? It's not like it'll get below 90 degrees within five hours of sunset.
Maybe the clothes aren't getting dry because I'm busy sweating all over them every forty-five minutes.
Another load is finished. It's towels. They're going on the line. Then all the dirty laundry will be finished, and I will finally get brave and make Drew look at my poor feet. Fortunately, we have an aloe farm that's completely out of control in our side yard (with an annex that makes people say "Wow, that's a lot of aloe you've got there" in the back), so I should be all set.
And maybe the burns on the bottom will help even out the sunburn I got on the tops of my feet when we went camping last month and I took off my shoes and stood in a lake without putting sunblock on them first (I wore shoes that covered my whole foot! I only took them off for approximately 30 cumulative minutes.) like I didn't know any better.
