Ironing

Of all the household tasks, I like laundry best. Sorting clothes? Easy. Putting them in the washer? No problem. Adding soap? Child's play. I even like folding clothes. They always look so neat and orderly when I'm done.

Ironing, however, has always left me cold. I'm not much of a feminist, but ironing invokes all of my visceral reactions to the injustice of things I don't even believe in, like the idea that doing a man's laundry is a form of submission.

But a few months ago, I decided to contribute to the family budget by ironing the shirts and pants that Jeremy wears to work. (Non-iron church shirts never really needed ironing because they looked good enough right out of the dryer to go under a suit jacket.)

(Jeremy's schedule leaves him with a limited number of hours at home. It's better that he play with the boys and mow the lawn during those hours.)

To make my task more palatable, I decided that I could watch TV while I ironed. Thank you, TNT, for Law & Order reruns!

I want to report that my ironing skill has gone from dismal to passable. Also, I find that ironing feeds my appetite for order. Since I've added the boys' super-wrinkly items (which were purchased by mistake) to my ironing pile, I have derived great satisfaction from seeing all of the plaid patterns lined up neatly with the seams.

And to top it all off, when Victor picked up his freshly-ironed shorts this morning he said, "Ooooo. Pretty."

And so I will continue to iron.

For now.