My Laundry Responsibilities just Reduced by One Person!

Did you know that if *someone* leaves a red pen in the pocket of their shorts and then sends them through the wash, it "writes" all over all the other clothes that are in that same load of laundry?

I didn't know until it actually happened in my own laundry room this week! Yep, that's exactly what happens. We've got lines of red pen, varying in length, drawn on the family's wardrobe - and of course, it DIDN'T happen to be a red load of wash I was doing at the time - it was light colors, including some striped shirts with white stripes!

Despite my multiple instructions to empty out pockets before sending anything to the wash, this same *someone* has also been know to leave gum, chap stick, papers, money, and various other things in pockets in the past. Now, the money I don't mind (it just takes some drying out) because I have a "finders, keepers" policy when it comes to my laundry duties. But, none of these above mentioned items have wreaked such havoc on the rest of the clothes as this "red pen episode!"

And you know what? It was so bad, that it would take me HOURS to try to recover the clothes in that load. So, you know what I did? I assigned *someone* to "SHOUT it OUT" duty - to spray and scrub every last red pen line on the affected clothes. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. But, I didn't stop there...Oh, no I didn't. You see, it'd become apparent to me that my instructions of proper pre-wash rules were falling upon deaf ears and I suspected these "failure to empty" episodes would reoccur, so I set myself free of that *someone's* laundry. I announced that *someone* was now solely in charge of doing ALL their own laundry - as in, from this day forward. I will provide a "laundry lesson" and then they are on their own. It's their responsibility. They can (or not) wash their own clothes - and ruin them if they so carelessly chose - and then use their own money to buy new clothes to replace the ruined ones.

The ball's now in their court. (I gotta use language *someone* understands!)

After all, it was the summer after my 8th Grade year when I got my official "laundry lesson" and became responsible for doing my entire family's laundry while my mom went on an extended "vacation" - that was 7 people with my mom gone! And I fared just fine. In fact, I was very capable in keeping up with the task. So, no child labor comments will be necessary! :)

As a side note, during this same above mentioned time period, I also got put in charge of doing all the shopping and cooking for the family in my mom's absence. (And tending my siblings all day, every day, but come on, it was my summer vacation and I had friends to see and places to go with them! And besides, I had an older brother & sister who were home - and WHY didn't they have to do anything? I justified.) Because that kind of stuff falls on the middle child, that's why! ;) So, I probably didn't fulfill that responsibility as completely as I could've, but the rest I did. I very much enjoyed taking the weekly money my mom had left for groceries and taking some liberties when I shopped! Oh, yes, to this day I specifically remember buying white bread and whole milk and [frozen] fried chicken at the store - because those were things we hadn't had before! We had wheat bread and skim milk and homemade casseroles at my house. Us kids were giddy about this! And we looked forward to those few extras I threw in each week she was gone that summer. (And it was our little secret!)

So, back to the latest development in me gaining some laundry freedom. It looks like implementing this new policy of *someone* else doing their own laundry happened not a moment too soon!!