Posted by DaddyFranklin at January 3rd, 2008

image One of my new chores is to take over laundry folding.  Lori has agreed to put away all the folded clothes.  She’ll even sort and load the washing machine, as well as move loads from the washer to the dryer.  Her least favorite portion of laundry is the folding, so I agreed to take over this responsibility.  So far, it hasn’t been too bad.  In our new house we have place next to the washer and dryer perfect for folding.  Previous residents of this house installed a closet organizer perfect for sorting and folding laundry.  Thus far it has been cluttered with boxes and junk.  (We’re still not completely moved in, which is good since we’ll be moving in another few months.) 

This past week, I cleaned it all out and have been folding laundry like a mad dog.  (Strange saying) We got a little behind on laundry over the holidays so I’m helping us catch up.  In one of our loads we had a disaster.  I have a very bad habit of leaving pens in the pockets of my shirts and pants.  Lori has learned to check the pockets thoroughly when loading the washing machine, but every once in a while, I manage to sneak one in.  If we can catch it after the wash, things aren’t too bad, but after the dryer, there are usually some ruined clothes.  Last week, that just so happened to be the case.  A few of our favorite shirts (2 of mine, 2 of Zachary’s, 1 of Lori’s, 1 of Timo’s), a dress of Emily’s and a pair of Timo’s pants were among the casualties.

We’ve got to restock on a few of these items which is rather unfortunate but it motivates me to be more careful in the future.  In fact, it begs the question: Why is a mathematician carrying around so many pens in the first place?  It’s time to switch back to pencils.  It reminds me of when I started at Wayland and was helping to prepare budget justifications.  I had to convince the administration that the Mathematics department needed more supplies than just pencils and chalk.