“Honey, I Did the Laundry”
By Angela Posey-Arnold
Coming in from Church Choir practice tired with no voice left to speak actual words, Bear, my husband, met me at the front door. All smiles he said, “Guess what I did?”
I shrugged my shoulders gesturing, “I don’t know but I have a feeling you are going to tell me and it might not be as pretty as that smile you are wearing.”
“I washed the dishes and put them up. I washed three loads of laundry. And I mopped the floor.” He exclaimed with such pride I had to smile. I hugged him and thanked him.
“You are a good man, Bear. You are so good to me.” I said as I plopped down and took my shoes off.
Contented and assured that all was right in our little corner of the world; I went to sleep before my head hit the pillow.
Fired up from his evening of ‘honey do’ bliss he had some things on his mind before he went to sleep.
“Angie, are you asleep? Angie?” He gently said in the voice he calls a whisper. Bear don’t really have a whisper, so I heard him.
“No, I am awake, now. What is it?” I whispered.
“You need to put Clorox on the grocery list. Good night my love, now you go to sleep and get some rest.” He said.
Funny I didn’t feel sleepy anymore. I recalled buying a big bottle of Clorox recently. Panic flushed over me as I thought of all the clothes in the dirty laundry pile. Monday is my usual laundry day so everything we had worn for the last 6 days was in the pile. I got up out of bed and headed for the laundry room.
I opened the door to a usually very neat and tidy room. “OH MY GOODNESS!! What happened in here?”
I have never really seen anything like it. It took me a few moments to evaluate the situation. It appeared much like an earthquake had occurred. Ah but nay, it was only the remaining debris from a ‘bull in the china shop’ situation. Or better yet, the ‘Bear in the laundry room’.
His clothes hanging sideways on hangers my clothes folded in some odd fashion I have never seen before. My eyes focused quickly to my new, red fall sweater. There it was hanging on a wire hanger. Yes, it had been dried. Yes, my dog can wear it now.
Why he moved everything in the room, I have no idea. If only the dogs could talk and tell me what had happened in the laundry room. The washer was still on the spin cycle. The dryer running on the last fluff cycle, I was afraid to look in either one.
I made sure the dogs were okay. Both accounted for. The cats all outside and accounted for.
“Lord Jesus, help me not to scream. Help me to be gracious and loving. Help me not to say ugly things to my mother-in-law about the way she never taught him to do laundry. Give me strength Lord and help me to remember the proud smile on Bear’s face when he told me all he had done to help. Amen.”
I decided if I wanted to sleep, I might should go ahead and take a quick peek in the washer. I carefully opened the lid and found old towels. Whew. What a blessing. Just old towels. With the strength of Solomon I opened the dryer. All seemed fine. All white things, socks, my favorite bra, and his white tee shirts.
On top of the dryer I saw this huge pile of what appeared to be our nice set of lilac sheets. Wrinkled and crumpled but no real damage done I began folding them and lo and behold I found a pair of blue jeans still wet inside the wad of sheets.
With a deep breath and another small prayer I thanked Jesus the damage seemed minimal. “I’ll straighten all this out tomorrow.”
With the determination of Scarlet O’Hara I thought ‘after all tomorrow is another day’. I went to bed thankful for my Bear who did all this work, however scattered it appeared he did it because he loves me. Dreams were sweet.
With the breaking of dawn I woke up made coffee and thanked God for another day. An incredible sunrise slowly painted across the eastern sky as I retrieved a pair of my socks from the dryer. I put one on and my toe went through the end of the sock. The sock disintegrated before my eyes.
With a little closer inspection I soon found out why we needed more Clorox. I think he used the entire bottle of Clorox on the white clothes. Not really sure if he used water or not in that load. I got all the white clothes out of the dryer and discovered all the elastic in my bra had disappeared.
By the time Bear woke up I had gathered all the over bleached articles and thrown them away.
“Lord, help me to be gracious. I need new underwear and we both need new socks anyway.”
“Did you see all the laundry I did?” He said sipping his coffee. Such a proud look on his face.
“I sure did. Ttttthhhaaannk you.” Whew I got it out. I even got it out with a smile. And I meant it. It didn’t matter about the clothes. What mattered was why he did it. He did it to make me happy. And it did. I lost a few clothes in the process but I gained more love, understanding and grace for the man I have shared my life with for twenty years.
“You’re welcome. I washed the dishes too you know?” He smiled, so oblivious to the disaster.
As I sat there eating some cereal and picking the dried oatmeal from the outside of the bowl, I said, “I know it, thank you. You are a good husband. Now, what are your plans for today? If you want to go to the hunting land you can, it is okay with me.”
“I believe I will. Thanks sweetheart.” He said as he donned his camo.
“You are so welcome, Bear. Have fun in the woods.”
I just hope the deer are not doing their laundry today.
Oh, and guess what he used to mop the floors? WD40. Yes, He read somewhere where WD40 would clean and preserve wood floors and make them shine, yet not be slick. He was right. It worked. They are so shiny and pretty.
So blessed. I am so blessed. We still have to have a talk about Clorox but other than that, we survived Bear doing laundry.
©2008 Bear’s Wife/www.angelaposeyarnold.com
