Who wears the pants in your family?

Okay ... so this blog is about laundry.  Don't get confused by the title.  This has nothing to do with whether or not Karen is the real "head" of this family (she and I argue more about not wanting to be the "adult" than we ever would about being in charge).

I do ALL the laundry in this house!

You might think this is me bragging more about how awesome I am, but I'm really not (not bragging ... the awesome part is totally true!)

Here's how it all went/goes down:

Although it was never an official "let's chat about it and hammer out a contract so there are some boundaries in this marriage" kind of thing.  There were many conversations mind you, just nothing written or even remotely as official as say, naming a child.  I hate cleaning bathrooms.  Karen would tell you she hates it too, but there is a smile on her face after they are clean.  That smile NEVER happens on my face after washing sinks, toilets, showers, mirrors, etc.  I could blame my mom for this but she actually taught me quite well how to properly clean a bathroom and I sincerely thank her for that.

(Where is this guy headed?!  I swear he jumps from subject to subject ... maybe if he read his blogs before posting he would realize that it's like a train wreck that can never happen because the trains aren't headed in the same direction ... and besides, one of them is a boat and the other is a helicopter).

Anyway, Karen hates laundry.  Well that's a bit of a stretch because I don't think she could actually ever really hate anything but early on in our marriage (well at least the part after kids so maybe it was more like 7-8 years into it) I can recall seeing Karen's frustration with feeling that she was always doing laundry.  Being a man (not trying to be sexist but we fit stereotypes pretty nicely most of the time) I quickly devised a solution: I outlined how Karen could do all the laundry on one day and if she was diligent about responding to the buzzer sounds for the washer and dryer, she could only be upset one day a week.  (What a gentleman!)

I cannot recall how it evolved from there but I am pretty sure I kept hearing frustration from Karen (to be fair, this was warranted even if it did occur, which is highly unlikely and probably just made up) and I was also frustrated because she wasn't sticking to the laundry schedule.  She would stop to make lunch or clean the bathrooms ... you know, get "distracted" and then the laundry wouldn't be finished by the time kids needed to head to bed.  So I took over ... and I haven't relinquished control ever since.

Late Sunday into early Monday is my Laundry Day* and everyone in this house knows what that means: I take my laundry seriously!

 - You better have your socks and jeans and whatever else you want clean in the laundry baskets by the time dad comes calling on Sunday afternoon.  Not even Karen is exempt (she would begrudgingly agree that I have left her jeans, etc. unwashed for an extra week to "set an example" for the kids).

 - You better collect your hangers to a single location in the closet.

 - You better know that when you get home from school on Mondays that you have clothes that need to make it from the half-wall near the stairs into the appropriate drawer or shelf.

 - You can expect clean t-shirts and nicely folded unmentionables.

 - You can also expect that if you forgot to include a sock for this week's load (Ben is the most common culprit) it's mate will be relegated to the "Matchless Sock Drawer" until the following week.

Be sure to ask my kids about the "Homey the Clown" styled sock thumper I made from about 40 unmatched socks.

*Astute fans of mine (and of Jason Mraz's music) will catch the reference to the song "Geek In The Pink" but you have to listen to the album version to catch the fun humor about "What time is it?!"

Call me what you will.  Judge me as harsh as you like.  I don't care.  But I guarantee ... wait, that's the buzzer ... just a minute.  Okay, what was I saying?  Oh yeah ... despite 6 kids and two adults worth of laundry, I complete EVERY LOAD EVERY WEEK without a single murmuring word ... but that's mainly because then Karen can't really guilt me into doing bathrooms ever again.  :)