Ironing

Yes, I still do it. I buy wash and wear clothes, the ones with the tags that claim the article is “wrinkle free.” That is “wrinkle free” until the article is washed. It’s kind of like the “water repellant” raincoats that work good until it rains.

Anyway, I wash these clothes in the permanent press cycle, warm water wash, cold water rinse. I shake them out when moving them between washer and dryer. The clothes are dried on the permanent press setting, warm heat with ten minute cool down and removed promptly the sound of the buzzer. I shake them and hang them immediately. But the clothes look like they were run over by a truck.

Wrinkle relaxer spray, hanging the clothes in the bathroom steam, or putting them on those pant-stretching hangers doesn’t work.

So I go to the closet, take out the ironing board, set it up, calm the cats because the screech has them cowering under the sofa. I go back to the closet and take out the steam iron, untangle the long extension cord I must use to reach the center of my living room (the only area in my apartment big enough to set up the ironing board), funnel a cup of purified water through the tiny slot on top of the iron, clean up the spills, plug it in.

As the iron warms, I bring out the wrinkled clothes, sorting them by fabric content. The cats come back just as I smooth out the first pair of pants. One of them jumps up on the board; the other attacks the cord. They run back under the sofa when I give them a quick jet of warning spray.

Three hours later I put the iron on the kitchen counter to cool; the cats investigate and sink their burnt noses in the water bowl. I pull the release hinge on the ironing board; the cats once again take shelter under the sofa.

There are solutions:

Solution One: Go out and buy more wrinkle free clothes (Note, this also resolves the shrink-free problem). Result: the ironing pile grows into a cat pleasing mound of fabric sufficient to hide the ironing board.

Solution Two: Start a trend to wear only wrinkled clothes. You first.

But just think: Before steam irons when we had to sprinkle our clothes and iron them before they mildewed. Then we got spray fabric finisher and spray starch that stuck up our irons and necessitated using iron cleaner once a month. Before that there were ten pound cast irons (Note: these are good for weight lifting) heated in front of the fireplace.


BUMPER STICKER: We're born naked, wet, & hungry. Then things get worse.