I survived....

So have you ever watched that 'I Survived' show?

Yeah, me neither.

I totally did not spend the whole of this weekend obsessively tracking down every episode ever aired. Nope. Not at all.

(more on this in a minute)

So this week is incredibly exciting for me, because it's the first time Goose and I will be on even ground. We'll both be working and going to school now, which means (drum-roll please!) Goose is no longer responsible for all the housework!! Hooray!

This is a big hooray for both of us...mostly on account of the laundry. Goose is a very good housekeeper, but hates doing the laundry, well, really Goose just hates putting the laundry away.

The closet is divided up into two sections, hers and mine. Not so bad right? Each section is then divided up further based on what's in it. So Goose has coats, sweatshirts, sweaters, long sleeve shirts, long sleeve dress shirts, sort sleeve dress shirts, t-shirts, tank tops, undershirts, and slacks. I have the same plus long skirts, knee length skirts, above the knee skirts, day dresses, night dresses, and miscellaneous. Each sub section is also in color order.

And that's just the closet.

There are 22 additional drawers as well.

Now, I admit that all that is a bit intimidating. I have a lot of clothes. A LOT. I have no idea where they all came from since I loathe shopping, but somehow I have way more stuff than even our reasonably large walk in closet can accommodate. Organization is critical.

So the great laundry debacle has gone like this:

Me: I complain that I have no clean (insert item of clothing here).
Goose: I just did the laundry so (said item of clothing) must be in there somewhere.
Me: In where?
Goose: In the clean laundry basket.
Me: What clean laundry basket?
Goose: You know, the one the laundry goes in when it's clean, it's on top of the dryer.

I open up the door to the laundry room and see piles and piles of laundry.

Me: Goose, what's clean and what's dirty?
Goose: It's all clean, I told you I did the laundry.

I look at the wrinkly piles of laundry, now covered in cat hair from where Beast 1 and Beast 2 have been nesting in it and sigh. It all needs to be rewashed. The item I'm looking for is buried somewhere in this landslide of laundry and even if I could find it, it's doubtful it would be in wearable condition.

The next day Goose will do some of the laundry and put it away. I will look at the dent made in the laundry disaster and thank her for working on it. And the cycle will start over.

Well as of today, I have relieved Goose of her laundry duties!! We both did a big happy dance, Goose headed off to work and I started on the laundry, and boy was there a lot of it.

8 loads later and I could see the washer and dryer again. Victory! I get the bulk of the laundry washed and put away, and I have literally an entire laundry basket full of unmatched socks. No wonder my socks never match! I thought she just hated matching them! Turns out, there are no socks to match!

Well I'm not having that so I go on a sock hunt. I move all the furniture, under the couch, the recliners, under and around the bed, and source about another full load of laundry. I go to wash it and realize the area around/between/under the washer and dryer is PACKED full of clothes. UGH. So I start pulling stuff out. I find 18 hangers, two comforters, a pair of sheets, three sweatshirts, and another basket full of random shirts/socks/unds.

Now, the washer and dryer are set back into an alcove in the wall. So it's not like I can just reach behind them and pull stuff out. I have to move them away from the wall just enough so I can dangle over the back of it with a hanger and fish stuff out from behind/around them.

So here I am, home alone for at least another two hours, dangling behind the dryer, hanger in my hand frantically fishing out loose socks from the abyss. I manage to wedge myself totally upside down, feet straight up in the air behind the dang thing before I realize I'm home alone and (surprise of surprises) stuck. It was somewhere around this point where I realized I was STARVING. I woke up at about 9 this morning and had a cup of coffee, and had been running around like a crazy woman ever since. I hadn't eaten a dang thing all day!

Well I started to get light headed. Was it because of the lack of food? Was it because I was upside down? Well I don't know.

Then I Survived came to mind, and I just started laughing. I remembered that guy who got his arm stuck in the radiator because of an overzealous cleaning spree and then had to cut his own arm off. Bwahahahaha! I could totally relate.

I spent several minutes thrashing about (upside down) in the space between the wall and the dryer, Beast 1 and Beast 2 now sitting on the washer, laughing at me with their squinty little cat eyes, before I managed to get my arm up and hook the hanger over the edge of the dryer. I broke the hanger, but managed to pull myself up just enough to be able to grab the top of the dryer with my little claws and drag myself back up.

I started the washer, made my way to the kitchen and ate everything insight.

The moral of the story; if your partner hates doing the laundry, don't make them responsible for it. You will probably end up stuck behind the dryer, upside down, during some sort of manic cleaning spree, with no one around to help you. Also, you should remember to eat before cleaning. Just in case you get stuck somewhere.

On the bright side, all the laundry is now clean, most of the socks are matched, and life is good. The laundry is now my responsibility and I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that (baring some cataclysmic act of God) the laundry room will never look like that again.

:D

*happy dance*