So, my son says to me one day recently, “Mom, can we get an iron?”
After I got over the shock of Mr. Always Rumpled presumably wanting to iron some clothes (unless he wanted to trick me into ironing them), I told him, “We already have an iron. It’s in the cupboard over the washing machine.”
He looked at me skeptically, as if I’d told him there was a pot of gold under the rainbow. “Are you sure? I’ve never seen it there.”
Now, I seriously doubt, at the age of 22, Cheetah Boy would know what an iron looks like even if it landed on his head in an earthquake, but I assured him that, yes, we do own this archaic device and once in a blue moon, I even use it.
“I ironed the tie you found in the bottom of your closet, last time you had a job interview,” I told him. “You’re welcome.”
I was still thrilled at the idea of my son wanting to use an iron and somewhat mystified, since I usually can’t even get him to put something rumpled into the dryer with a damp cloth to smooth out the wrinkles.
Then, he shattered my illusions into a billion bits.
“I bought this patch to put on my backpack, but it says you have to iron it on.”
Sigh.
Now, I used to have an editor who ordered me, “You only get one sigh per column. One sigh is enough.”
But this required two sighs to express all my pain and frustration. Sigh. Sigh.
“Sit down,” I ordered him. And, to punish him for crushing my hopes, I forced him to listen to the story of how my mother had an ironing basket. And, after the laundry was washed and dried, it would go into that basket to be ironed. Then, freshly de-wrinkled, the clothes would go onto hangers and appear mysteriously in my closet.
Accessories required to perform this task included an ironing board, hangers, a can of spray starch, a bottle of water to sprinkle on the clothes and a bottle of distilled water to pour into the iron to make steam. Also, some salve for when you burn your fingers.
These days, I own none of these accessories except a miniature ironing board that hangs up in my closet. I’ve dropped the iron itself a few times so it doesn’t make steam any more, but it does still get hot. And occasionally, yes, I can still scorch a fabric with the best of them, though age and wisdom has decreased (get it?) the likelihood.
It only comes out for emergencies like weddings and job interviews. I don’t even know anyone who still irons regularly unless they’re a quilter. Quilters have to iron.
I was trying to remember when everyone stopped ironing, but I presume it was in the 1970s when new “drip dry” fabrics came out that didn’t wrinkle.
Considering how often we travel, at least we never have to hear someone in the car say, “Turn around. I think I forgot to unplug the iron.”
That was so long ago now that it’s buried in the mists of time. Imagine ironing a pair of Lycra bicycle shorts. Or a halter top.Occasionally you’ll see a woman with a nicely pressed crease in her jeans, but I always assume she either has a housekeeper or sends her laundry to the cleaners.
Personally, I like to buy clothes that are wrinkled on purpose. There’s a reason that trend caught on, and it’s for people like me. And don’t even ask me about the cleaners.
It’s been decades now since I’ve been to the dry cleaners. When I adopted my kids as a single mom, certain things had to go. And that included time and money to have things cleaned. If it needed to be cleaned, I just didn’t wear it. And I stopped buying anything that couldn’t be washed.
That did make me sad, because for years I started looking like that awful website, “People of Walmart.” Where people clearly don’t care about their appearance in public.
Well, I did care, but I was usually just too tired to do anything about it.
There’s a dry cleaning store next to our Trader Joe’s, so my kids have definitely walked by one, but they would have no more idea how to use it than a fax machine. Or an iron.
Well, that’s not entirely true. Curly Girl, my 21-year-old daughter, uses an iron quite regularly.
However, it’s to iron her hair. Because, God forbid she should enjoy her gorgeous naturally curly hair when everyone else’s hair is straight as a board. It’s even occurred to me to stop calling her Curly Girl, and “Ironed Girl” instead.
So, did Cheetah Boy iron on his patch? Of course not. By the time I got the iron set up and hot for him, he’d already conned me into doing it for him. He’s a guy. I’m weak.
"middle" - Google News
February 12, 2020 at 10:10PM
https://ift.tt/2OMt6D6
Frumpy Middle-aged Mom: The Iron Age at our house has ended - OCRegister
"middle" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2MY042F
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
No comments:
Post a Comment