I think it’s impossible as a mother to be diagnosed with anything life threatening and not immediately look at your husband and feel like you need to train him. Train him in all the things you do everyday, all the things you think about, all the things you would potentially do that he should do; you know… just train, shape and mold him to be you.
Fortunately, for me and our boys, Paul is pretty well-trained. That is except for the fitted sheets. And therein lies the mess of my unresolved chaos and fear that if I get hit by the beer truck (a.k.a my piece of shit brain tumor kills me) my boys bed sheets will never be folded correctly and they’ll be disorganized balls in the linen closet. CRAZY. I totally know. I can’t help it, I’m type A. Control is my name and Control is my game.
The laundry never stops. Well, I should qualify that. Laundry only stops when people come over who’ve never been to our house or we don’t want them to think we live in squalor. If you’ve been here and think you’ve walked into the corner Bodega Laundromat, know we call you friend or family and we pray you’ll come back.
The laundry cart is never empty. It lives in the back hall outside the laundry room, overflowing with loads that seem to exponentially grow like the Swine Flu and it doesn’t get better once it gets clean. The dinning room table, designed to seat 12 (but rarely does), bears the weight of at least four to five unfolded loads of laundry and piles of sorted kids clothes waiting to be delivered to waiting hangers upstairs.
IT NEVER ENDS!
If the cart is empty and the table visible, well… we are either freakishly caught up, or we’re trying to impress and appear as if we have our shit together. My money is on impressing. Selective avoidance and acceptance; that like my brain tumor, laundry is not meant to be controlled, keeps me Zen about the whole mess. I am one with my chaos.
As I started tackling a pile of clean clothes the other day I came upon a pile of sheets that Paul, who in his effort to eradicate the clutter, had ‘folded’. I was immensely perplexed and irritated. I have no desire to embarrass, emasculate or make fun of my fabulous husband, but I had a moment of:
I can’t believe you don’t remember how to do this… I’ve shown you how to do this… I better not get hit by the beer truck because if you can’t manage to fold a fitted sheet… Hell in a handbag, this house would be a disaster without me.
So, I tucked corners into each other and folded the wretched mess into a tidy little square package, sighed, carried a load of clothes upstairs and pleaded with god to spare my family. Pleading that I will never get sick and to leave well enough alone. My kids need fitted sheets folded the way mommy does it. Is that too much to ask?
Curious? Need to know? Learn from the best and most insane of my fellow Type A control freaks how to fold a fitted sheet. You can thank me later. http://www.marthastewart.com/article/how-to-fold-a-fitted-sheet
GREY MATTER LIFE 
OK – the link to how to fold the sheets put me on the floor! You are hysterical!!
I can relate – I’m certain my last words will be, “Did you make the bed?” (And they will only be my last if the answer is “yes” – otherwise I’ll be compelled to get up and make it before I leave!)
Good luck – wich there were a laundry fairy, but you’re stuck with it!!!
I have been doing this wrong for 50 years…all the while knowing something was wrong but no matter how hard I tried, I could not make the perfect square. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!
May you be folding sheets for another 50 years!
Here’s to a long future filled with laundry chaos…and no beer trucks!!!
It’s the littlest things in life, isn’t it? Hopefully Paul will never have to learn to fold sheets without you!