The laundry pile

I hate laundry. I hate putting laundry in a pile. I hate moving an overfilled laundry bin downstairs. I hate putting laundry in the washer. I hate moving laundry from the washer to the dryer. I never separate out whites or lights from darks. It's a chore to make sure the baby's clothes are not washed with all the rest of our clothes. I hate laundry that has sat in the washer and been forgotten and then gets that rank smell and then trying to erase that rank smell. I have folding all of the clean clothes. I hate the pile of socks I sleep with at the end of my bed night after night because I hate matching socks. And good Lord above I hate putting it all away just to lather, rinse, repeat the whole process, week over week.

HATE! DESPISE! LOATHE!

The funny thing? I am anal when it comes to folding. Clothes fit best in their drawers when folded a certain way. I love my husband very much, but man alive, he does not fold how I'd like him to fold. When you fold a shirt, don't you fold it so that the front of the shirt is on the outside of the fold so you can see what shirt you're pulling out of the drawer? Or is it just me? You have 3 gray shirts in a drawer, if they're all relatively the same gray, same fabric more or less and they're folded with the front facing in, how can you tell which one you're pulling out of the drawer when it comes time to wear it?

One would think if I hate laundry as much as I voiced above, I would look past my folding quirk and just see that he's folding, that I'm not having to do it, but I can't. He starts folding and I call him off the pile. His job is to carry the laundry baskets back up the stairs because I'm usually carrying a child up the stairs.

Most recently I've been folding the laundry and I stumble upon an article of clothing of his that he had taken off inside out. If there is a pet peeve beyond folding a shirt with the front folded toward the inside of the fold, it's folding clothes that are inside out. The last couple of weeks I've been the nice wife and been turning them right side out before folding them. But there are more and more articles of clothing popping up inside out.

This past weekend I performed an experiment. Last week I folded a shirt inside out, just as it was put into the laundry. He went and put it on inside out and didn't notice until an hour or 2 later when he was sitting in our living room. Why would I bother turning it inside out if he didn't bother to take it off that way (which was how he pulled it out of his drawer in the first place) to save me the trouble when doing laundry.

And so, I've made a decision. I am no longer going to turn the clothing right side out. The 4 year old is very careful to take clothes off right side out for me, and so she gets them folded and back in her drawer that way. I always undress the baby with his clothes right side out so no problem there. My husband will just start finding more of his clothes not turned right side out when he pulls them out of the drawer. Hey, you know, if he doesn't mind taking his clothes off inside out, I don't mind folding them inside out. Finding time to do laundry these days is a challenge. My time is of the essence. Turning clothes right side out is not part of time efficiency.

What does that special someone in your life do that irks you? Come on, everyone has their pet peeves. Spill it!!! I am not the only anal one out there.