Manic Motherhood: Who Turned me Into the Laundry Fairy?

I hate laundry. It never ends. Even if a miracle occurred and I finished all the laundry in the house, someone would walk in covered with mud and grass stains, strip off their clothes and toss them in the hamper, thereby creating a new load of laundry to do.

I have not seen the bottom of my hamper since the day I bought it. I don't even know if it has a bottom. For all I know, it could be a huge tunnel of laundry going clear to the center of the earth, never ending, always half full of smelly socks and mustard stained t-shirts. At least, I hope that's mustard.

There was a time that I didn't care about laundry. When I was little, laundry was easy-I didn't do it. One day I was wearing my last pair of clean underwear, and that afternoon the laundry fairy (also known as mom) magically placed a week's worth of clean underwear in my drawer. In terms of laundry, this was the best time of my life.

Then I grew up.

But even then, I didn't notice how much laundry I had. On Sunday afternoons, I would get together with friends at a Laundromat, eat chips and microwave burritos and watch my underwear spin around in the dryer. It was like a party, only better. I didn't go home hung over and I had clean shirts for the rest of the week.

The best part was that if I went home for a weekend, the laundry fairy still lived with my parents. She'd grab that huge bag of dirty socks the minute I walked in the door and by the time I left Sunday night, the laundry fairy had repacked my entire suitcase with clean clothes, snacks and a couple of twenties. Life was pretty good.

Then one day, the laundry fairy went on strike. So I entered the "fluff and fold" phase of my laundry life. Fluff and fold is the ultimate luxury to twenty-somethings. You dump off your gross, disgusting, and smelly laundry at the Laundromat-and then you leave. A couple days later you pick it up and it's folded, smells fresh and all the stains are gone. It's like the laundry fairy moved into the Laundromat. Only in this phase, you leave the twenties with the laundry fairy, instead of finding them in your suitcase.

Then I got married. And I entered the "don't touch my hand washables" phase. In our house, Hubby did laundry once. He managed to wash (and dry) a gorgeous angora sweater I had just bought for 40% off at Macy's. When Hubby was finished with the laundry that day, my beautiful angora sweater was too small to fit a Barbie doll. I was horrified. I mean, how could I live with a man who couldn't read a sweater label? So I took over the laundry duties. Now, to this day, I believe he did this on purpose, but I don't have enough evidence to convict him.

Of course, even though married laundry involves twice as much washing as single laundry, at least you see the bottom of the hamper from time to time. It's when you have a child that the laundry never ends. Who knew that one tiny little baby who can't even speak or roll over could produce enough laundry for an army? And not one outfit is bigger than 6 inches, so why does your laundry multiply faster than rabbits in spring?

I think it has to do with the spit up. For the first year, both parents and baby smell like sour milk. It's disgusting, actually. But it identifies you to the world. People smell you from miles away and know you have a baby. Now, some new parents are anxious about this smell. So they change their baby every time a little spit up appears on a onesie. And thus, the bottomless hamper appears in your house.

Anyway, my laundry life has come full circle. It's pretty apparent that I have become the laundry fairy. I'm kind of disappointed, actually. I mean, the laundry fairy title just kind of stuck to me. There wasn't any ceremony granting me freshly laundered wings. I didn't get a magic wand equipped with the power to lift any stain. All I got was a bottle of Shout and some bleach.

And the dream that someday I will go back to fluff and fold. Or at least teach Hubby to read labels.

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About Manic Motherhood: Laurie Sontag is the author of the popular humor blog, Manic Motherhood at http://lauriesontag.com and has been a humor columnist for California newspapers since 2001. If you can't find her at Manic Motherhood, check under the sofa. She's not there, but she likes it when somebody else tries to find the lost socks and freak out the dust bunnies.