Washout

There's something about doing laundry that is both satisfying and annoying. Satisfying, because once you've done it you can stop thinking about it for a while, always a pleasure. Annoying, because — well, because it is. What we call “clothes” when we're wearing them, we call “laundry” when we take them off. Even if you have everything washed, dried, and put away, you're just a few short hours from watching the whole process start up again.

I'm not sure why, but lately this has been reminding me of something else, although I wasn't able to put my finger on it until now. What it reminds me of is recycling. I saw a cartoon once of a man looking radiant, his hands on his hips and a big grin on his face, and the caption read, “Gary basks in the glow of a fifteen-minute window with no empty cardboard boxes in the house.”

And there it is, that bit of time between recycling pickup and the next Amazon delivery, when the laundry's done, the sun is shining, and all's right with the world.

Random Bonus Content: We have talked about the difficulty of telling characters apart in movies and TV shows (A Modest Proposal, 1/17/24), but things are really getting out of hand. I now suspect that when a movie or TV show is going to be made, casting directors put out a call for an actor/actress of a particular age with a particular body type, hair color/style, etc. Then they cast as many roles as possible from the list of applicants.

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