Winter Wonderlaundry: A Repost

Tuesday 18th November 2008 (when my boys were 6, 5, 5 & 1)

Last night I came home from a friends house and found snow in my laundry room ('room' is an exaggeration - it used to be a toilet cubicle).

'Ahh,' I thought. 'Snow. How lovely. Wait, no...'

Of course it wasn't. I switched the light on, took a deep breath and was gas-fumed by the smell of non-biological detergent. And I don't even buy the powder, I get the tabs. Someone had been very busy.

Whoever it was (and my money's on Snotmee), had very thoughtfully used some of the decimated tabs to try and wash something, which turned out to be a school jumper.

Now, I'm all for the children helping with the housework. I have a list of chores up that they do in return for stars, which they exchange for points, which they exchange for prizes - it's less complicated than it sounds - but this definitely wasn't on the list. In fact, laundry is the one single household job I actually enjoy doing because you get to fold it and iron it while sitting on your behind and watching television.

What confused me the most was that whoever had done it had left the door open on the washing machine, and there was soapy water sitting inside the drum, and (I discovered when I tried to hoover the floor) more water on the carpet. You see, I have tried many times to open a washing machine mid-cycle, and there is no physical way of doing it. Not even if your washer explodes and dies halfway through a wash with lots of important items still inside it (that happened when I was a student). Not even if you're talking with your husband in the kitchen and you suddenly realise that his hand-held computer is being flung round on spin-cycle along with his work clothes (that happened in our last house). If a washing machine has water in it, there is no way on this green earth it will let you get that door open.

Unless you're a five year old child.

I really think that all those scientists who feel that they have all the basic proponents that will lead to the cure for cancer should bring them to my house, leave them in a high cupboard, sit in another room with a cup of tea, and wait for that five year old to conduct an experiment that will lead to the impossible. I mean, it's got to lead to a way of making me money enriching the world one day. It's cost me enough in make up, liquid soap, washing powder and other smearable products.