More Than A Laundry Basket

When is a laundry basket more than a laundry basket?

Possibly when you get one for your birthday. When you didn’t ask for one. And you’re not even mad about it. In fact, the laundry basket makes you kinda happy.

But it’s just a laundry basket, right?

Maybe not.

Let’s go back, and I’m talking way back, at least a couple of years, so, you know, in terms of the internet, ancient history.

We moved. In the middle of painting, getting a new water heater, and making sure our basement stayed dry, we attempted to solve some other little household problems in our spare time. One of those centered around laundry. We’re a ‘sort your laundry as it leaves your body’ type of home. Thus, there are clothes piles assigned the imaginative names of Cold, Warm, and Hot.  My husband is the only one who ever washes anything on hot, but, okay, whatever, we should ideally have three separate hampers for laundry.

Except the only three-receptacle hampers are huge and won’t fit anywhere in our room. I say ‘our room’ because that’s where all the laundry ends up. It’s accessible to all and my husband and I are the ones washing and drying, so in our bedroom it shall be until the little ones start to do their own wash.

But husband has a “better” idea; get the three-receptacle hamper and keep it where everyone can get to it – in the hallway!

THE. HALLWAY.

Okay. It’s a new house. There’s an upstairs. And, yes the hallways are kinda wide, but NO, JUST NO. No one wants to see the laundry all the time. I know I don’t. The hampers have lids, you say? Don’t care.

And how will I transport this mountain of dirty clothes to the basement? With the one laundry basket I already own, affectionately known as Warm.

UM. NO.

Why? The dirty laundry is already self-contained in Warm as it is. The cold laundry languishes in the corner, on the floor, waiting for Warm to be done with the basket and the hot gets shoved into a bag with an otter on it – don’t ask. But you know what would help? Another laundry basket. The very thought mystified my spouse. Why did we need another one? We already had Warm. I informed him that some homes must have more than one laundry basket to a household, but not us.

To avoid the unsightly scene of a laundry hamper in the hallway, I resigned myself to the way things were, making do with Warm all summer.

And then my birthday came. Too large to really wrap, I had to close my eyes. And what should I find when I opened them? A new laundry basket! To be named Cold! Oh, happy day.

I’d forgotten about our impasse, but my husband had not. His getting me a new laundry basket was his way of telling me I was right without having to come out and say it. But because he is my husband, and I can be a bit dense and forgetful about things, he did come out and say it. I was right. Now we have two laundry baskets and the whole process goes a bit smoother.

Our lives have been made easier by this simple addition and it only took, well, I don’t want to think about it. I don’t have time anyway. I’m pretty sure I have mountains to move.

Thanks for reading.