When I was a young, married woman we lived in Maine. Our home was a rental house with a dryer hook-up, but no place for a washing machine. We’d spend Saturday afternoons at the Laundromat. That was until we discovered the magic of “Wash-Dry-Fold”. If you are not familiar with this wonderful invention I will explain. You bring a huge bag of any sort of filthy laundry to the saint of a woman that works at the Laundromat and the next day you return to find all of your items clean, dry, and neatly folded. They are folded fresh from the dryer so that, sometimes, days later the heat is trapped between your clothes. There is nothing better on a cold Maine morning than pulling a warm t-shirt out of your dresser–especially if you didn’t have to wash it yourself!
In those days, I only thought I had a ton of laundry. Now, I have kids.
I remember having a conversation when my oldest was about 8 weeks old. I said: “I just can’t believe the amount of laundry he creates!” And, really, it is amazing. He drooled, he spit up, he was messy with a bottle, he was messy with a diaper. This was at 8 weeks old. He is now 8 years old. He graduated from dripping bottles to jarred carrots, then marinara sauce and chocolate ice cream. On his way he learned to roll in the grass and the mud and Carolina red clay. And through all of this was diapers and potty training, nose bleeds and art projects. It is not a matter of what clothes will be stained, it is matter of when.
Over the years I have learned many things about stain removal. I have in my laundry room three different kinds of stain fighting products. I know which one to use for organic stains, which to use for foods, which for crayons and markers. But, in spite of all this knowledge and $100 worth of sprays, next to the shelf that holds my stain fighters is a stack of clothes that are now used as rags…
