Thursday, June 25, 2015

Some Thoughts on Ironing...

© HA! Designs

Why?
Why would you iron?
One of my greatest skills is my ability to avoid the chore.
Confession time...and this is a true story so please don't judge me...or do...I'm confident in my anti-ironing convictions.
My sister was teaching my daughter to sew (she's the seamstress in the family, every family has one)
And they needed to press a seam before sewing it...or something...
I don't sew so I don't know.
Ironing is part of the reason I don't sew.
But I digress...
She said "Let's heat up the iron so you can press the edge down."
My daughter said, and I quote:
"What's an iron?"
I know you're thinking that she must have been three or four years old at the time and you'd be wrong.
She was probably nine or ten.
Whatever.
So the other day I was pawing through clothes at the Goodwill outlet.
An aside...
If you haven't been to a Goodwill outlet, you simply haven't thrifted.
Period.
So I was sifting through piles of clothes in a bin with my friend when she found a cute blouse and held it up.
It was cute, albeit wrinkled, so I glanced at the label.
Ha!  That's what I thought.
"It's linen...you know you're going to have to iron that" I said with a scowl.
And she said "Oh, you're right" and threw it back on the pile.
I loved her just a little bit more...
Then she asked me about ironing.
And I indicated that I'd rather chew on chalk than iron (however I probably said something slightly less dramatic),
Let's just say that my dislike for the chore was conveyed.
She said that she ironed her husband's shirts, which caused me to shudder.
Although I have been known to iron a shirt or two...
Grumpily.
Then I told her that one of the perks of the empty nest was the dry cleaners...
Since we're no longer feeding hoards of teenagers,
We can afford to have my husband's shirts pressed.
It's worth every red cent.
And picking up the plastic-covered smooth shirts is soooo satisfying.
Our dry-cleaning lady knows me well...she has the clothes rack moving around the track as I come through the door.
For the record, I do still iron on occasion...
Usually the occasion involves a major holiday and a tablecloth and a closed dry-cleaners.
But it's fairly rare when a shirt gets ironed in our house.
I'm very careful to buy clothes for myself that do not need ironing,
And my husband has plenty of shirts pressed and ready to go!
My iron enjoys semi-retirement in a cupboard over my washing machine.
Next to a can of starch...circa 1990.

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