Around this time every year, the ironing board comes out. I search through the linen closet for the spray starch and the iron, I got as a wedding gift MANY years ago. (Yes, it is the kind that plugs in…..)
Summer vacation is over, it’s time to go back to work. All the office clothes come out from hiding. Each item gets the once over and the….”Well I guess this could use some ironing.” My sons see this and say, “Mom’s ironing! Time to go back to school!” Yes, I only iron once a year. Once everything has been worn to work and then laundered again, that blouse is on its own. I confess, I have NEVER ironed my sheets. Who’s going to see them?
Do you remember the new product that Downy Soft Rinse came out with? It was supposed to all but eliminate wrinkles. Well – I am hoarding gallons of it in the bomb shelter. If it is true that cockroaches will survive humans, they won’t have to worry about wrinkles.
Seriously, the fabrics of our generation are not those of our mother’s or grandmother’s. (Is anyone else glad that the bullet-proof polyester of the 70’s is gone?) When things are taken out of the washer promptly, (not allowed to dry in a twisted bunch in the washer…..I never do that) and then quickly hung up, there are very few wrinkles. My family has never looked like Shar-Pei puppies when they left the house.
Thinking about ironing or rather not ironing, reminds me of a story…C’mon you knew one was coming.
When Sam was barely three…, Oh, Sam was an outspoken little dear…
We were in our drug store waiting to pick up a prescription. Seems I had managed to pick up a lovely little skin condition from one of the children in my day care business at the time. My business ended shortly after this event, because I was tired of checks bouncing and the ‘little skin condition’ left me thinking about signing up to be an ‘extra’ in a remake of Ben Hur.
This case of ringworm was not just a ‘little bump’, this was seriously nasty. After three trips to the doctor, she finally saw the rash in its full glory, or gory, take your pick, I was hoping that it would be ‘three times the charm’ for this new ointment, and it would be cleared up for good.
We waited near the pick up window, after I had steered Sam away from the condom and personal hygiene aisle… ”Really, they’re balloons for grown ups”…Into the pharmacy walked a woman in a black cocktail dress, stiletto heels, & blond hair that looked like it never had “Chicken Mc Nugget fingers” run though it…(her loss). To coin a phrase from my father-in-law…”she was stacked like a brick outhouse.” (Personally, I’ve never seen a brick porta-potty.)
Sam immediately gave her the once over. Then he looked over at his mommy. Stirrup pants…remember those? One of Daddy’s over-sized t-shirts, running shoes, no makeup and hair pulled into a pony tail. I was the before photo for Extreme Makeover. He looked at me and smiled. I wondered if Sammy had ever seen “tired Mommy” dressed up. More importantly, I silently wished that the pharmacist would hurry with my medicine.
Sam continued to stare at the woman in black. She did not appear to be very comfortable around children, or maybe it was because Sam was circling her, in a friendly manner….(I knew I shouldn’t have let him watch “Shark Week”….) He finally looked up at her, batted his eye lashes and said, “We’re here to get medicine for my mommy’s rash!” She gave me a weak smile; at least she didn’t burst into hysterical laughter…
Why wasn’t there a hole for me to climb into? I tried to distract Sam with an informational brochure on hangnails or something light hearted like that. My usual standby, the blood pressure machine was out of order. The highlight of a trip to the drug store was taking mom’s blood pressure. It was a good thing that it was out of order; I didn’t want to know that my b/p was 160/100.
The pharmacist told the blond bombshell that her prescription would be up next. Apparently mine was taking some time. It must be tricky to mix ‘eye of newt’ with ‘wolfsbane’. Sam seized the opportunity, he slid off the chair where I had him cornered, walked over to the blond woman, and before I could scoop him up, he looked up at her and said, ”My Mommy has an iron and an ironing board – and she never uses them!” I looked at her, smiled and I said, “This is such a proud Mom moment!”
Loser that I am, I powered up on coffee last night and ironed 20 outfits for school. I’m forever cursed because I love linen. Several people have told me recently that the rumpled lines in my linen skirts look almost “artsy.” Now I’ve decided to start putting on my eye liner the night before, so I can literally look like I just rolled out of bed.
I must confess that when my friend visited from England, for the first time in my life, I ironed the sheets cause the rickrack on the borders looked bad. The horror!