In our house, I am the primary house keeper. This entails, cooking, cleaning and laundry. I have delegated some of these tasks to my partner such as garbage and recycling as well as some loading and unloading of the dishwasher.
One chore I guess I insist on doing myself is laundry. I have a very specific modus operandus when it comes to laundry and I admit I'm just too anal to let anyone else do it. I have a theory about laundry. My theory is this. Clothes come out cleaner if they are NOT inside out. This is also a pet peeve of mine. Socks are the worst for this, I have matched socks that when one is washed and dried inside out, and compared to it's match that was right side out, the inside out sock was still dirty and worst of all, crunchy. GROSS! So I make it a point to turn everything the right way around.
I do however have ONE exception to the rule and that is sweaters. Reason for this, to minimise pilling. And not on all sweaters either, just the really soft pill prone type. Again, personal preference. So, where am I going with this, well let me tell you. Last night as I was moving the laundry from the washing machine to the dryer I notice a pair of jeans were inside out. UGH! I hadn't notice when I put them in because they are very light and inside looks like out side and so they were washed that way. Ok so one item of clothing missed my scrutiny. Oh well, Except, I made a comment.
You see the jeans belong to my partners daughter, and yesterday when she was wearing them I noticed they were dirty, being such a light colour the dirt shows. So I mentioned that before she goes back to her mom's that I wanted to wash her jeans so she needed to throw them in the laundry and she did. The thing is my partners kids are trained to turn their jeans inside out to preserve the colour. Ok, I get that, but, first these jeans are so light there is very little colour left, they were bought that way and second I think it was important for him to defend his daughter because I was slightly annoyed. Mostly I was annoyed with myself because I missed that they were inside out and wanted them to come clean.
You see, at some point in my life I heard or saw some "point of interest" thing that it was a myth turning your jeans inside out to preseve the colour, unfortunately I made the mistake of saying this out loud. And so the debate began.
My partner was adamant that he had known for years that you turn your jeans inside out to keep them from fading, I've heard this too, who hasn't? The thing is, I do not turn my jeans inside out, I don't think they come as clean when you do this. Also, if memory serves the example was two pairs of identical jeans washed in soapy water, rinsed and spun. The water was collected and the amount of dye left in the water was almost identical, so much so that the idea of turning your jeans was strictly a personal preference. Logically it made sense to me, you are submerging the material in the same soapy water there is no magical barrier that prevents the dye from coming out.
The thing is, I was adamant that it was a myth, poor choice of words I admit, what I should have said is it's a personal choice and personally I do not wash my jeans inside out. Well, my partner, rather than letting it go, which is what I was willing to do decided to consult the google gods to prove me wrong. Well every thing he pulled up said the same thing, wash your jeans inside out if you don't want them to fade as quickly. OK, so if you don't care then who cares? Right? Well apparently because I didn't bow down to the google gods and my partner for being right he decided that if the information isn't what I say it is, it's wrong. Well, no, I just don't agree, I can do that it's called free will.
So, now I'm mad. I'm mad not because google proved his argument. I'm mad because he felt it necessary to prove me wrong. Why would he do that? Is there something wrong with our relationship that he now feels entitled to take it that step further? What should have been a discussion of personal preference turned into an attack of character because I didn't agree. The thing is it's made me question my worth in the relationship. I know if he were to read this he's say I was overreacting and that somehow because I chose to defend my apparent misinformation that I'm in the wrong but will not admit it. OK according to google I'm wrong.
It comes down to this. I do the laundry, I decide how it gets done. I will not start turning jeans inside out because google says I should, I really don't care if the jeans I wash fade, they are not $100.00+ jeans and well, they generally wear out or are grown out of before they fade anyway. This will not change regardless of what his kids are taught, they can turn them inside out, I'll just turn them the right way around it's not like they will ever know their clean laundry mysteriously appears when they return, it's all good. If the theory of dye not washing out as easily when inside out is correct then logically neither will the dirt right? I would much rather have clean jeans than dirty unfaded jeans any day, thank you very much.
This event occurred last night basically at bed time, and I was soooo mad I was having a hard time falling asleep. He on the other hand, feeling vindicated I suppose, had no problem driffting off to dreamland. I had a decision to make, apologise for defending myself and let it go, or steam all night long and loose sleep. Silly, I know but this is what I was faced with. So being me, I ate crow, woke him up and apologised, his response was, "well you do the laundry so you're going to do it your way anyway, no big deal." OMG! are you serious? I was all worked up for nothing? Could he have not said that when we were debating it? OR at least agree that I will do it my way regardless as I had said earlier? Here I was all worried that he was mad at me for putting up such a fuss about it being a myth that I was going to loose sleep over it. Well, now I know, keep my big mouth shut, on all accounts.
I thought about searching the Internet for the example that stuck in my head but I think it was pre-www so I'm probably out of luck, I'll look but I'm not holding out hope. The bottom line is, I do the laundry, I will continue doing it my way, if there's a problem with this then I will only do MY laundry and everyone else in the house is on their own. The one point that I don't get, why do we really care if our jeans fade? In this technological day and age have we not improved the dying process to prevent this? Not to mention, I have a new pair of jeans that are quite dark and I have to tell you I can not wait for the dye to wash out I'm tired of my hands turning blue from touching them.
As I was typing the last sentence I recall years ago when I move back to Vancouver with my first husband, we had cream coloured furniture. Being pre-microfiber this was a cotton blend and not easily cleaned. The spot on the couch were my ex consistently sat was stained blue from his dark jeans. Now you tell me, would you rather your $40.00 jeans fade or your $600.00 couch end up ruined because you were told to turn your jeans inside out. Maybe another argument for doing it my way. It doesn't really matter, again it is completely personal preference and to defend either side will only end up in a fight so, why bother?
Needless to say, I though about posting some sort of survey on my facebook to see how many people turn their jeans inside out or really don't care if they fade. I may still just as a point of interest. Really though there is no right or wrong. If your doing your laundry then it's completely up to you if you want to wash your jeans inside out. I wouldn't recommend drying them that way though. They tend to get dryer lint stuck to them more so when inside out. OOOHHH another argument for not turning inside out...soap residue. Gets caught on the inside and when the outside is the inside, ya, you all know what I'm talking about. I win! LOL
With much love, light and faded jeans.
Tammy.
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