More on Men and Laundry

There are a great many things about our boyfriends and husbands that drive women crazy, but I've got to admit that my leading complaint is that my husband seems perfectly content living out of laundry baskets. It's a character flaw that just drives me up the wall. 

With two adults and three children, I have to run a minimum of two loads of laundry a day and that's just to keep up with the avalanche of dirty clothes and towels. The washer & dryer run day and night, and when I dream...

I dream about laundry.

Mountains of it. Shambling mounds with eyes and mouths that roam about the house in the dark, waiting to attack our feet when we get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

So I sort, wash, line dry or transfer to the dryer, remove, sort and fold. Each member of the Snark household receives a laundry basket full of clean clothing with specific instructions, "Put these away and return the basket to me."

The boys, for the most part, obey. Not with alacrity but after a couple reminders, amid much whining and complaining, they eventually comply.

Not so, Mr. Snark.

Oh no, Mr. Snark promises action and then leaves his laundry basket perched atop his dresser for upward of THREE FREAKING WEEKS at a time. He lives out of the basket, reaching in to grab clean socks, underwear, shirts, whatever he happens to need, so he doesn't have to go into the drawer. Reminders are met with bland agreement that he should put his laundry away, and the nagging gradually escalates to threatens until Mrs. Snark eventually sidles alongside her husband and kisses him sweetly on the cheek.

"Dear," she purrs, "Do you like being married?"

His eyeballs bug open. "Yes."

"Are you happy?"

"Yes," he says suspiciously. "Why?"

"If you want to remain so THEN PUT AWAY YOUR FUCKING LAUNDRY!"

That usually brings about a burst of cooperation. The laundry goes away, the prodigal basket is returned and the cycle goes on to repeat itself.

One day, Mrs. Snark tired of nagging and hid Mr. Snark's clean laundry basket in the back of the walk-in closet. A week passed and the man made no mention of it. Mr. Snark actually removed clean clothing from his drawers. Mrs. Snark shrugged and continued to add folded laundry to the basket.

Two weeks passed. Surely, Mrs. Snark thought, He must have noticed by now.

Nada. Nothing. Zip. The man continued to live out of his dresser. Mrs. Snark hauled dirty clothing away and never returned the clean stuff.

THREE WEEKS PASSED. The hidden basket of clean laundry grew until it towered and became impassable, requiring Mrs. Snark to leap over it in order to reach her sweatshirts.

Then, one day, Mr. Snark said, "I'm starting to run out of underwear. A basket of clean laundry usually appears on my dresser right about now."

Face palm.