My mom taught me how to do laundry. She taught me the first principle of laundry is strong sorting. By color. I discovered my college roommate was sorting by weight, which explained the denim-tinged tees. My mom’s system involves five key categories: darks, lights, whites, hand wash, and dry cleaning. According to her, she’d been doing laundry since like the first grade. Further proof that I should be doing laundry instead of her. Plus the one time where I allegedly left a pack of Big Red in the pocket of something white and therefore rendered an entire load pink-spotted trash. She’s big on checking pockets. Me? Not so much.
So when James and I were divvying up chores, I was more than happy to let him have laundry. At the start, he wasn’t the pro-launderer he became. You can always count on James to develop profound expertise on any particular topic, and laundry was no different. I can trust him with my clothes. He reads labels, and instructions. He buys special soap from the Laundress. His record is spotless; not one single Big Red incident. The only wrinkle? As a leftie, he folds everything backwards.
It still gets me when I go through James’ stacks of t-shirts and they’re all folded in the opposite direction. You think it’ll be the big anniversaries and holidays, and don’t get me wrong, they’re rough. But more often than not, it’s the little daily, domestic details like folded shirts that leave you in a puddle.
Now, I confess that taking back all the chores I strategically negotiated long, long ago sometimes feels particularly, cosmically unfair. He took trash, weed eating, grilling, cars, and laundry. I took meal planning, grocery shopping, dishwasher emptying, and maintaining relationships with Santa, the Book Elf, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter bunny. Oh and dentist appointments. Clearly my negotiating skills back then weren’t what they are today.
And so it’s only fair, in the eyes of said cosmos, that Jake and Nate add new housekeeping tasks to their domestic resumes. They’re resisting Jamie A’s idea of making dinner once a week. Nate and I just can’t agree to weekly spaghetti. And so the negotiation began today with Jacob’s first folding lesson.
Well, maybe not his first. I’ve taught him how to fold before. Many times, actually, not including when he was four and obsessed with “folding” laundry. In any case, it went well.
And as a leftie, he folded all the shirts backwards. Just like his dad.