The skeleton in my laundry room

I’m about to let the world in on a shocking secret.  Are you ready for it?  Are you sitting down?

I don’t like to iron.

There.  I said it.  Go ahead and judge.  Let the name-calling begin!  Throw some rotten tomatoes at me if you feel the need.  You won’t change my mind, though.  I just don’t like to iron.

I’m a housewife.  I do everything under the sun during my daily life.  I plan, chop for, and cook meals; I bake; I clean the house from top to bottom; I do laundry on a daily basis; I ferry kids to school, parks, play dates, grandparents’ houses, and appointments; I have been known to mend a hole or two in a t-shirt; I do the yard work; I deal with servicemen who come to the house; I do the majority of the child rearing; I give moral support to my family.  Note that ironing isn’t included anywhere on that list. 

When Trevor and I first got married, I did try to fulfill my wifely duties by ironing his shirts.  I realized a couple of things right off.  I’m not good at ironing.  I mean, I’m terrible.  I had a great teacher; my mom rocks at ironing.  In fact, she finds ironing relaxing.  Yes, you read that correctly.  The woman enjoys ironing.  I’m not sure how I came from her womb.  Anyway, when I iron, whatever I’m ironing ends up looking worse than it did when I started.  Quite often, a shirt looks like a wild animal dragged it away, spent a restless night rolling on it, and deposited it back on my doorstep.  The second thing I realized is that Trevor is waaaaay too tall.  No, that’s not right.  He’s not too tall; his shirts are too tall.  The fabric pools on the floor on one side while I’m trying to smooth out the creases on the other side.  It’s not pretty.  And with all of the wrestling I do to keep the shirt from getting dirty, it just ends up wrinkled again.  And have I pointed out how much time it all takes?  Egad.  In the time it would take me to iron all of Trevor’s work shirts for a week, I could watch an entire episode of Dance Moms or Real Housewives of New Jersey.  Priorities, people.  Priorities.  Not to mention the safety issues.  If anyone would have kids who would run into the laundry room, trip over the iron’s cord, knock over the ironing board, and injure themselves or others, it would be me.  Clumsy is sort of my thing. 

I tend to enjoy chores that give me immediate gratification like mowing, vacuuming, cleaning the kitchen, or organizing a closet.  By that definition, I should like ironing because I can watch the creases magically disappear.  But, c’mon, it’s not magic.  It’s my bum right shoulder making it happen, and that’s no magic, baby. 

My compromise with Trevor as soon as I realized my ineptitude was this: you took your stuff to the dry cleaner before we were married and you can keep doing it now. Where is the compromise?  There really isn’t one.  That’s the way I roll. 

So now you know my dirty little secret.  I’m the best housewife around, except when it comes to ironing.  Maybe someday, when the kids are older, I’ll go back to school and take Ironing 101.  Then again, maybe not.  After all, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.