I had a revelation today. It began when I saw that the inability to properly close my closet doors was not because of the mass of junk I’ve accumulated in the past 22 years, nor was it any other metaphorical reason pertaining to my sexual persuasion - though I know some of you have thought of a few doozies, it was because it has been weeks, if not months, since I last did a proper laundry cycle. I have found myself going through endless amounts of clothing, re-wearing jeans for so long that I have found receipts that outlasted my milk, and entirely depending on my remaining underwear supply to be my reminder of when it’s time to really start color separating. In an effort to prepare for my giant move across the continent, I started today with the intent to get some laundry going so I can start sifting through it all, deciding what and what not to bring - a decision I will probably never be able to make. Laundry, one of the easiest and most user friendly chores to do around the house, is one of the least completed and most avoided of the household responsibilities. You’re more likely to find me emptying the dishwasher, cleaning all of the Pledge-friendly surfaces in the living room - not the entire house.. I’m not crazy, or even cleaning the cat’s litter box in lieu of my mother - not to worry, it gets cleaned regardless. Laundry is a devil of a chore and my refusal to comply with any rules other than my own is inevitable.

The mound of clothes that seemed to have exploded out of my closet, and then someone somewhere just hit pause leaving a giant wad of American Apparel for me to chop through with a machete, was slowly encompassing the extent of my bedroom. Slowly but surely, I was accumulating a both colorful and multi-textural carpet facsimile. Upon my waking up this morning and sliding across the hardwood as though I was competing in the Olympics, I decided that I should at very least color separate to not have the entirety of my wardrobe spread across the floor. I’d much rather have the Pyramids of Giza in my bedroom than the Sahara Desert. So I began splitting them up into darks, lights, and whites. This is a process I have since questioned as there is so much more to color. I know you wash your reds with your darks, but what if it is a seemingly light red? Not pink - I know what pink is - but a lighter, fairer red; one that will obviously leave your stray white sock alone to live in it’s bleached glory. This is just one of the procrastinatory endeavors of my subconscious. I moved from my darks, where I set anything red - whether it seemed menacingly red or not, with my lights, the laundry I find always happens to be less of a problem - mainly because there is a far greater helping of dark clothes than there are light. I guess there is something inside of my inner clothing aficionado that drives it to convince me to buy clothing more in the realm of ‘Darks’. There is a fine line that is drawn between lights and darks. Where does one choose the correct grey socks and with which laundry pile do they belong? I must have spent an additional 3 minutes of laundry separating time deciphering the unwritten rules that are paired with the act of laundering.

Eventually, with all of the “well this sock is 50% grey and that shirt is fairly red” second-guessing of myself, I found a way to organize my stacks into three not neatly piled, but incredibly separated, mountains of clothing - each one substantially smaller and covering less floor-space than the last. I lead the day with my darks. I shoved as much as our washing machine could carry, which proved to be much more than originally perceived, and with a perfectly full load and double-concentrated detergent, we were in business. Here, I met my first problem - I had approximately 5 ‘darks’ remaining to be washed. There is no reason I can think of to wash 5 articles of clothing separately from their equally-colored family members - I didn’t even consider these 5 to be my favorites or something that I desperately needed to wear immediately after being washed. In a flurry of decision making, I found it easiest to wait the 15 minutes for the wash cycle to complete, and just toss in those 5 rebellious darks in with their light counterparts - wardrobe desegregation. It was big 50’s and 60’s and now I was applying my knowledge of American History to my clothing - no separation in hampers, or of detergents or fabric softener sheets.

With my laundry in the dryer for an hour, I spent my time waiting for the buzz to alert me when it was time for the best part of laundry. Of course, my sarcasm points directly to putting it all back. The worst part of laundry is not the preparation, the waiting, or even the discolored clothes you may be surprised with at the end of the cycle. It’s the unloading and folding that really gets my newly washed underwear in a twist. Occasionally, I will stare down at my dryer and just hope that by some twist of fate or some higher power living in my Maytag, each shirt, pair of pants, and towel will be separated and folded - I’m not even asking for much in this case as I wouldn’t be picky on execution or perfection. With my hamper full of a mash of clothes that seems comparable to what the back of Courtney Love’s Aerostar must look like, I began prying the heaps of clothing out and tossing them about my room in an effort to achieve some form of organization from the chaos that was expelled from the dryer. Underwear over here, shirts over there - I found myself creating both calm out of chaos and a comfortable stack of cushion for my cat to perch on - though after a few swats and treats being tossed down the hallway I was able to rescue the shirts hair-free.

I began my ritualistic bed to closet walk with 5 tshirts in hand at a time. I would attempt to use this time to organize my closet by color - just for fun. This lasted for about 17 seconds before I found another distraction. I had to find a way to fit 7 pairs of pants into one dresser drawer. I had done it before, though the pants came out looking as though they were mimicking the face of a 90 year old, covered from top to bottom in an endless map of wrinkles. This was my opportunity to right what I had wronged - I was going to fold, store, and secure my pants in what will prove to be my proudest moment of folding to date. Yet, with the endless amount of distraction, and the other 3 pairs of pants still drying in the dryer, my plan lost steam and I found myself playing favorites, folding my nice jeans and rolling or crumpling my poorly fitting and less attractive jeans - though, the jeans should know to fit me better if they want good attention. With every plan of perfection falling through the cracks, I was faced with an easier task - shoving my underwear into a single drawer. 15 seconds later, I had finished my daunting task and, though the underwear drawer doesn’t quite close like it used to, my bed was becoming less infiltrated with newly washed attire, increasing its ability to be slept in - which I believe why we all put our clothes on our bed: If we put them anywhere else, the motivation to do it isn’t as strong as you need to clean off the bed to sleep in it. With my bed cleared and - nearly - all of my clothes stowed safely back in their nesting spots, I found comfort in knowing that my hamper was empty and my closet doors were able to be forced shut, even if reluctantly so.

My what seems to be bi-annual laundry day proved to be successful, though the motivation took a good chunk of time for me to muster up. I found nothing to be missing, not even a sock. Only a few shirts had a tinge of new colors in them thanks to my recent artistic creations involving Hanes V-Necks and a few boxes of Rit. I even found things to do while waiting around an hour for the next load to dry. It proved to be a day of procrastination, blanketed with motivation. Every aspect of my day was somehow procrastinated, from my clothing separating at my own pace to my obsessive cleaning of the lint tray, I found reasons to take longer doing my laundry. Yet, with the motherloads of procrastinatory actions, I found myself with a fully laundered wardrobe that was ready to begin another grueling cycle. But I’m not trying to get too ahead of myself - I’m planning my next laundry day to also coincide with the Olympics.

x.