Sudsy

Sometimes life can be so simple. Take washing clothes, for example. It is a chore that I dread worse than about anything. So I put it off, put it off, put it off, until one day, I suddenly do it. It is always unplanned. No regular wash day for me. I just do it when the spirit hits me. And you know what? It suddenly isn’t as dreadful as I had imagined. It’s all very routine.

And sometimes it can be rewarding in a twisted sort of way. For example, my last dog died over three years ago, yet I still find some of their hairs on my clothes. And they are stubborn about being removed. And even if I do remove them, they seem to creep back in somehow. Yet the thought is somehow sort of comforting, and the hairs bring back lots of wonderful memories of chasing rabbits, digging holes under fences, and the terror of getting a dog bath.

Now that is a wash job that was genuinely dreaded and hated. It seemed to be equivalent to putting the poor little animals in a death trap. And they did their very best to escape it. They dreaded it from the beginning until the very last suds were washed down the drain. Yet, afterwards, life seemed more exciting than ever. They ran around and around, wallowed on blankets, the sofa, the bed, anywhere they could find a piece of dry cloth, which also included the pile of clothes that needed to be washed. By the time the dogs had distributed the pile of clothes all over the pantry, I suddenly lost my dread of washing those very clothes. I simply put them in the washer, poured some detergent in, and let ‘em go. Yes, it is all that simple.