[519] in Humor
HUMOR: How Guys do Laundry (classic Dave)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Fri Oct 28 23:41:20 1994
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 1994 23:37:21 EDT
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 94 15:11:07 PDT
From: Connie_Kleinjans@Novell.COM (Connie Kleinjans)
HOW GUYS DO LAUNDRY
by Dave Barry
I have here a letter from Alison Schuler of Albuquerque, N.M. (motto:
"The City That Is Probably Spelled Wrong"). Ms. Schuler is concerned
about the issue of How Guys Do Laundry. She relates the following
anecdote:
"My husband announced one morning that he had discovered the previous
night, on the eve of a two-day business trip, that he was out of
underwear. Why he told me, I do not know. I never tell HIM when I'M out
of underwear. Anyway, he decided to remedy the situation in true guy
fashion, by washing exactly three sets of underwear, thus disregarding
the bulging hamper full of the rest of his underwear, which, presumably,
would wash itself during his absence."
Ms. Schuler's letter serves to remind us of the importance of not
engaging in sexist stereotyping. We must never make blanket gender-based
statements such as: "Men always hog the blanket." Just because Ms.
Schuler's husband doesn't do the laundry, that doesn't mean that there
aren't millions upon millions of males who DO do the laundry, then hang
it out to dry under the three suns of the Planet Xoomar, where they
live. Most males here on Earth, however, do not do any more laundry than
they absolutely have to. A single-sock load would not be out of the
question, for a guy. A guy might well choose to wash ONLY THE REALLY
DIRTY PART OF THE SOCK.
At first glance, this behavior might seem to be reprehensible, but in
fact there's a simple, logical explanation for it: Men are worthless
scum.
No, seriously, the explanation is that many men are AFRAID to do
laundry, especially laundry belonging to people of other genders,
because they (the males) might get into Big Trouble. I know I would. In
our household we have a lot of sensitive garments with laundering-
instruction tags full of strict instructions like:
DO NOT MACHINE-WASH. DO NOT USE BLEACH. DO NOT USE HOT WATER. DO NOT USE
WARM WATER. DO NOT USE ANY WATER. DO NOT TOUCH THIS GARMENT WITHOUT
SURGICAL GLOVES. PUT THIS GARMENT DOWN IMMEDIATELY, YOU CLUMSY OAF.
I'm intimidated by these instructions. I developed my laundering skills
in college, where I used what laundry scientists call the Pile System,
wherein you put your dirty undershorts on the floor until they form a
waist-high pile, thus subjecting the bottom shorts to intense heat and
pressure that causes them to become, over several months, clean enough
to wear if you're desperate and spray them with Right Guard brand
deodorant.
As a married person, I use the Hamper System, which is similar to the
Pile System except that the clothes really do get clean, thanks to
magical hamper rays.
No, I of course realize that hamperized clothes are cleaned by a person
such as my wife, Beth, or Alison Schuler of Albuquerque, N.M. But I also
know that Beth follows a complex procedure involving sorting and
pre-soaking and 27 different combinations of water temperatures and
chemical compounds such as fabric softener, stain remover, fabric
hardener, cream rinse, plutonium, etc. Beth wouldn't LET me do her
laundry unless I underwent years of training, because she assumes I'd
screw it up and cause our garments to shrink down to cute little
Tinkerbell clothes, or transmaterialize in the dryer, similar to what
happened to that unfortunate man in the movie "The Fly," so we'd wind up
with, for example, a brassiere that had pant legs.
Beth's reluctance to let me near the laundry is typical of the vast
majority of American women, according to a nationwide survey of several
other women I know. A typical reaction came from my research department,
Judi Smith, who gave the following statement regarding her husband, Tim,
a Ph.D. college professor:
"I don't trust him to do my laundry at ALL, unless I've sorted it first
and given him strict instructions before each and every load, because
otherwise everything we own would be mauve or gray. ... He puts his
clothes away damp. He can't put away anyone else's clothes, because he
can't fold. I mean, the man can't fold a TOWEL for God's sake. Somehow,
he can't get the corners to match up. A HAND towel, even."
I repeated Judi's statement to Beth, who emitted the bitter humorless
laugh of a woman who has more than once watched her husband turn a basic
shirt into a prizewinning origami project.
I'm not defending men here. I'm just saying that a lot of us view
ourselves as laundry-impaired, and we'll probably continue to do so as
long as women roll their eyes and shove us away from the washing machine
when we're about to, for example, wash our delicate silks in the same
load as our boat cover. So I'm saying to women: Teach us to launder. We
are willing to learn, really, just as soon as the playoffs are over.
Give us a chance to show what we are capable of. And definitely buy
stock in whatever company makes Right Guard.
(C) 1992 THE MIAMI HERALD
DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
