I may be pathologically neonate phobic but I am quite domesticated. It is usually me who washes the clothes. My wife works much longer hours than me and tends to get home at times when the spin cycle would make an unsociable racket throughout our block of flats.
I get up at 5:30am on working days so my body clock is on a different setting from hers. On weekends I get up four hours before she does. It is logical for me to set the washing machine going.
This all works very well until one day she makes a surprise attack. She wakes up at 9am on a Saturday – a move unprecedented in our relationship.
“So you’re putting all that in the washing machine?”
I jump. This is as unexpected as a leopard landing on my neck and clawing my scalp.
“Woah! You’re awake,” I say.
She is not sidetracked. “What colour is that?” She points at an unspecified item in my armful of dirty clothes. I look down and try and work out what she means. “It’s blue.” Aah, her Pilates T-shirt.
“This one?” I pick it up.
“What’s it doing in there?”
This seems obvious to me. “Being washed.”
“What if the dye runs?”
This hasn’t occurred to me. “Does it?”
“I don’t know. She flaps her hands with annoyance. “Why are you putting darks in with lights?”
I stare at her. “It makes no difference if the dye doesn’t run.”
“How can you know if it runs?”
“I wash new clothes by hand until I’m sure they don’t run. Anything that runs, I keep washing by hand. Don’t you do that?”
“No.” She twitches in that way that makes it clear that this is obvious.
“Why not?”
“You don’t wash light and dark clothes together. Everybody knows that.”
“But if they don’t run, it doesn’t matter what colour they are.” A thought occurs to me. “Do you put clothes that run into the laundry basket?”
“If you do the washing properly, it doesn’t matter.” I can see that her face is starting to look like the textbook illustration for Slapped Cheek Syndrome.
“Properly?” Spikes of adrenaline lead to my first burst of petulance.
“Yes, properly. You’re putting lights and darks together.” She points at the tangle of clothes. “Look.”
“So,” I put on my most annoying Rumpole of the Bailey tone. “You’ve been putting clothes that run into the laundry basket. Even if I put only the coloured clothes together, it still means that some of your non-colourfast clothes have run into mine and discoloured them.”
“You just don’t know how to wash clothes properly.”
I tip over the edge into total bastard mode. “If you did any housework, you’d be able to separate the loads however you want.”
She thinks of something to say. “Well, you never fill the machine properly. If you ever waited until there was a full load, I might get the chance to wash the clothes occasionally.”
Quick-witted readers may spot the chance that I spurned at this point. Instead, I shove the clothes into the washing machine. There is too much for a load. “Want to see if you can fit any more in?” I challenge her like an eleven-year-old accused of talking in class.
“So you’re just going to put them all in together, are you?” Her hands are on her hips and her eyebrows on Cold War interrogator setting.
“Yes.” I stand back. “Unless any of your clothes run. If they do, I’d like you to take them out.”
She turns and stamps back to the bedroom. I slam the porthole and the machine starts filling with water. I go into the bedroom. Her plan is that I apologise and do the washing properly. Mine is that I will be the voice of sanity. Obviously, this will irritate my wife but she will realise the wisdom of what I say when reason returns to her. My wife is lying on the bed, barricaded into her anti-me zone by the Sunday Times Style magazine – the covers beyond which I cannot pass.
“I’ve got an idea,” I say.
She does not emerge from the safety of Style. “What?”
“You don’t like the way I do the washing so how about from now on I do my washing and you do yours?” She says nothing. “That way,” I go on pointlessly “Your clothes don’t get washed with the wrong colour and mine…” My wife emerges from behind the barrier to shoot a few flares from her eyes. “…don’t get washed with clothes that run.”
She gives a small snort and disappears.
“Is that all right with you?” I persist. I know I’ll be in trouble if I don’t get her agreement.
“Mmm,” she says, eventually.
On Wednesday evening I get home and put my clothes into the machine. I start the wash and put the kettle on. My wife walks in, puts her bag down and stares at me.
“That’s just your washing in there, is it?”
“Yes,” I say. “That’s what we agreed.”
“You won’t be able to be so selfish when we have children.”
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