There's only one right way to do laundry

OK, I'll admit it. I'm a laundry purist. I learned at my mother's knee -- or her Maytag, I guess -- that you're supposed to do your washing every Monday. In those days you started early enough that you were one of the first in the neighborhood to have your sheets whipping in the wind. If you finished late, everybody knew you'd been listening to "Backstreet Wife" and "Helen Trent" on the radio. Later on, when everybody had dryers, the pressure was off.

There was a definite guideline to follow. You started with a load of sheets and towels, then underwear, then light clothes, then dark clothes, then Dad's work pants. They had a tub all their own, because they usually had sawdust in the pockets.

When I had a home of my own, I felt duty-bound to follow the same guideline. I guess I'm a slow learner. I'd done laundry for five or six years before I realized the purpose of Mom's order. When you're filling your chug-chugging washer with a hose from the laundry tub, you get as many loads out of one tub of water as you can. Therefore, you start with whites and work up to Dad's work pants.

After I went to work, doing laundry on Monday morning wasn't possible, so I followed the same instructions on Saturday. Even though with my automatic washer I no longer had to do laundry in the order Mom taught me, I still divided them as she said. Oh, there was the occasional slip-up, when a toddler's red pajamas accidentally got in with the underwear, and everybody wore pink undies until they outgrew them. The females in the family didn't mind, but the males were a little bent out of shape in their pink shorts and T-shirts. But I sorted faithfully. And with four kids, I didn't have to worry about wasting electricity with small loads. Our older daughter was extra helpful in this area.

She sometimes tried on three or four outfits in the morning getting ready for school, and it was much easier to drop them on her bedroom floor than hang them back up. Then on laundry day, she'd scoop them all up and put them in the hamper. This meant that when I found 12 of her outfits in the laundry, I had to hold each one up and try to remember if she'd actually worn it.

I thought there was a lot of laundry when the kids were small ... all those diapers and sleepers, and the occasional lovely hand-knit sweater that sneaked into the hot wash between a couple of crib sheets, and came out a perfect fit for Barbie, if Barbie had been into wearing baby clothes.

Then they became teenagers. Each kid's daily shower required three towels: one for the body, one for the head, and another for the head when the first one got too wet (these were the days of long, flowing locks). And the Levi's needed a hamper of their own. Not only was there a humongous heap of them, but they had different instructions:

"Wash this pair in hot water and dry them on high, Mom. They're too loose."

"Only cold water for these, and stretch them out as much as you can while they're still wet."

"Can you use some bleach with these, Mom? They look too new. They've got to be kind of soft and worn-looking."

I bought four hampers to line the hall outside the bathroom, and put a label on the wall above each one, so there could be no doubt about where they should dump their dirty clothes. After melting several Chap-sticks in the dryer, I put another sign above the Levi hamper: EMPTY YOUR POCKETS!

Once I was away for several days, leaving Russ and the kids on their own. When I got back, the hampers overflowed and I had to wade through a layer of dirty clothes to get to the bathroom.

It seemed this might be time for the kids to learn to do their own laundry. One of the boys thought this was the most un-motherly thing he'd ever heard. A couple of the kids decided the two towels used on their hair at each shower could be hung on their doorknob and used again. One kid carpeted the floor with dirty clothes and laundered on a needs-only basis, sometimes pulling on damp Levi's as the school bus geared down to stop. It wasn't uncommon to open the washer and see a lonely pair of his underwear and a T-shirt plastered to the side, waiting to be put in the dryer.

It would be interesting to see how they manage laundry in their own homes. As for me, I still faithfully separate the garments into tidy little stacks. Mom always had eyes in the back of her head. I don't know if she can see me from heaven, but I'm not taking any chances.

* Donna Scofield is a freelance writer whose articles, columns and short fiction stories have appeared in numerous national and regional magazines. The longtime Yakima resident is retired after working as a secretary and office manager in Yakima School District elementary schools. She has raised two sons and two daughters.

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