Laundry Strike

Had two placements return home to their parent this week. I am always happy for their family when reunification is possible. At the same time, I’m two short at the dinner table, and the empty seats sting for a bit. 

Sassy Britches was a hot mess as they departed as she lost her partner in crime. There was a lot of tears and anger. That seems to have passed, thankfully. With the great need for homes for teenagers, I suspect the beds won’t be empty that long and she will have a new friend to stir up drama with. 

I’ve replaced the salad forks. Thank goodness for Amazon. I’m disgruntled. I last bought them at the end of June. It was a pack of 12. Daytime Emmy Nominee played the ever popular role of “snitch” and let me know that Sassy Britches has just been throwing them out. 

I’ve gotten such encouragement for the laundry strike that I decided to try it again. It’s bitten me in the butt already, and two days in a row. I went into the laundry room in the evening when I returned from work to collect my things from the dryer. Only to find that someone had already taken them out… while wet. Which increased the number of times I uttered, “For fucks sake” to myself to a total of 14 that day. Because I’m not a neanderthal, I left the load that someone gave me the boot for, to run, and I put a load for myself in the wash. You know, because most prefer dry clothes and I’m a nice person when I want to be. 

Fast forward to the next day. I’m first awoken by my favorite Australian, Alexa. She is always kind enough to tell me when the washer and the dryer have completed. I could have however, done without that broadcast through the entire house at 7am. I was surprised because, first, no one doing laundry should have been home and secondly, it wasn’t me. Upon further research, turns out a someone number two, had decided they were also more worthy of the dryer than I was. Now I have two wet loads and zero laundry baskets. Maybe the laundry baskets are off having an affair with all the salad forks? Oh, what to do? What to do?

My friend, and equal, when it comes to sarcasm, suggested I wet the line cutter-in-fronter (I know that is not a word) clothing and toss it in the snow. While that sounds fun, I know this bunch and that’s not going to get me anywhere but on someone’s shit list. There is enough drama around here already, I really just wanted clean laundry. So, like any normal, irritated and undervalued mother, I tossed the load in the dryer on the floor. Sorry, child. No basket. Then put my wet load in to dry and started a load of my own wash.

I have clean clothes. It hasn’t happened since. And, I still have a drawer full of salad forks. Winning.