Eight Dryers Drying

How to tackle Mt. Everest?

Things got a little hectic over the holidays and the laundry got seriously avoided.  More avoided than usual.  And now that the holidays were over, the ornaments put away, and the lights taken off the house, there was one gargantuan task left... 
a monumental mound of laundry.  One that reached so high it should be named and given a proper elevation.

It can't be underestimated--my complete loathing for laundry.  I've been doing laundry for well over 22 years and I've yet to finish it.  I'd rather scrub a thousand toilets because at least for a moment, that kindly porcelain is courteous enough to stay clean and polished for a while.  But laundry, that great evader, it never seems to get that way.  The moment you discover the bottom of a hamper there is yet another hamper somewhere in the house belching at you with a full belly.  When it comes to laundry, there is never a gold star, a check mark, or crossing off the list.  Nope, there's always some dirty sock hidden somewhere under a child's bed perniciously wafting its stench as if to say, 'You're not finished, you've got another load left to do...'.

The never-ending-ness of it all slays me.  Which is why I'd never be very good at that job where you collect shopping carts in a parking lot.  There's a job that's never finished either.  That sort of thing would drive me to insanity.  I need gold stars and check marks.

So how do you tackle Mt. Everest?  The scale and breadth of my laundry piles spread its dense blue jean and prickly sock forest out the laundry room itself and upward into a high mountain that reached the thin white altitudes of my ceiling. 

Yet, despite my loathsome attitude on the subject of laundry, I usually keep the "L"word well under control and rarely reach the limits of excess overflow.  Rarely.  But on occasion, once or twice a year, it becomes the neglected hedge that grows far too wild to prune back without the use of heavy machinery.  And when that happens, when things get out of hand, we've built in a panic button of sorts, for when the laundry just gets way way too overwhelming.

It was Mark--who had probably ran out of socks and underwear, that raised the white flag of surrender and ventured to push the panic button first.  I was still in a state of denial about the situation, and being competitive, as if you can compete with laundry, I was yet unwilling to surrender defeat to a pile of dirty clothes.  But for Mark--It was time to push the PANIC button on our laundry issues. 

When it gets that bad we've learned that we can solve all our problems in under 90 minutes.  It's called the laundry mat.   

Mark rallied the troops and in no time he had one kid sorting, one kid bagging, another loading it in the car, and a couple more scrounging up every single quarter from every change jar, junk drawer, and couch cushion in the entire house.

Armed with detergent and fabric softener, our family descended upon the local laundry mat like we were seizing a beach at war-time.   
An epic battle between the Skillmans and their laundry. 

Ten wash loads and eight dryer loads later, we had won--though a few of our troops suffered though the combat with a frown or two.  In the end, everything was folded, matched, and clean and we were headed home in less than 90 minutes!

The battle was won!  I got home and took a victory lap in my laundry-free laundry room and felt the sweet rush of victory!   

A gold star!  

A giant check-mark!

That was until something at the bottom of one of the laundry bins caught my eye...

yes, of course.