The stories you are about to read are true. Yes, men do laundry. Sometimes with entertaining results.
A tenet of The Good Men Project has long been “Every man has a story to tell.” And unbeknownst to us when we started the project, we’ve since discovered that “Every man has a laundry story to tell.” We reached out to our community for our special Men at Home section, sponsored by Clorox, and we received the following funny, quirky, and entertaining anecdotes all around washing, rinsing, sorting, drying, and folding clothing. As men, it’s a part of our world. Welcome to it.
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“Years ago, someone gave me a hint that- when you are on vacation – you should put your sterling in the washing machine to prevent a sneaky robber with a metal detector from finding it while he ransacked your house. Great idea. Until someone like me forgot my secret hiding place and washed my grandmother’s tea service with the kids’ beach towels! “
— Jim Higley, IL
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“Worst thing that ever happened? Sophomore year at college, I volunteered to do the laundry for a girl I had a crush on. (Yeah, gender role reversal.) She gave me explicit instructions that her sweaters were to be washed and hung out to dry — and I threw them in the dryer too. I ended up buying her three new sweaters at Macy’s.
On a happier note, when I was a child, I loved the smell of clothes fresh from the dryer. When I was little, I begged for the chance to pull them out and carry them to my mother’s bed, where she’d fold them. Of course, I held them so tight to pull the scent onto my skin that I ended up wrinkling everything.”
— Hugo Schwyzer, CA
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I flooded both my parents’ basement and our apartment in the same year while washing everyone’s clothes. The kids were all, “you’re in big trouble, dad.”
— Ron Mattocks
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“When I got married, my wife had two non-negotiables: Do not drink the last Diet Coke and Never, Ever mess with her laundry. She is ok with me washing my own clothes, as long as I finish the job – don’t leave things in the washer or dryer. But the quickest path to a night on the couch is to mess up any of her clothes.”
— Roger Durham, KY
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“When I first became a single Dad to my 8-year old daughter, no one had ever told me to separate whites and deep colors. I had been taking dress shirts and slacks to the dry cleaner. Suddenly, I could not afford such luxuries, and so I crammed everything into a single machine, figuring, “How hard can it be?” Result: I wore pink tidy-whities for a loooooong time.”
— Perry Glasser, MA
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“During my last winter in Chicago I had to carry my laundry on the Halsted bus to the Laundromat on 18th and Halsted. The one I had frequented a few blocks from my house had been converted into a bank. It was as though my entire neighborhood had gotten wind of my imminent move to Los Angeles, and was rallying up to kick me out in one smooth wave. Initially I carried my clothes in a little grocery cart, slowly rolling it down Taylor Avenue towards the Halsted street. But after an incident on the #8 bus where it accidentally created drama with the foot of a fellow passenger, I started using a roller suitcase. I caught myself openly laughing at myself a couple of times, the scene so bizarre – of me, an almost a PhD holder, trundling along in the snow with my dirty linen carted behind me.”
— Siddharth Ramakrishnan, IL
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“When I was a teenager, I expected that the magic laundry fairies would show up to take care of all my laundry needs for me. When the laundry fairies didn’t show up on time, I learned how to wash and dry one set of clothes at a time, while everything else ended up in a big pile on my floor. Weaseling out of laundry duty was high on my list of priorities.”
— Derek Markham, NM
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After I got married, I quickly discovered that my wife Caroline was in another league when it came to laundry. Which made me realize that I was far from the laundromat juggernaut I had long considered myself to be. My brights, it turned out, were stuck in the dense cycle. Sadly, Caroline’s prowess has now rendered me laundry impotent, scarcely able to muster up even a, um, single load whenever I’m called to do just that. Sadder, still, there are no little blue pills that can remedy the situation. But even if there were, they’d be of no use to me. See, it’s not that I can’t get the job done. It’s just that, thanks to Caroline, I now know that the job I’ll do will be woefully inadequate.
— John Osborne., TN
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“My elderly father lives with me now, and suffers from dementia. We have a hard time communicating, and he gets agitated sometimes, but is better when he’s helping with the laundry, which he washes and hangs out on the line. It’s a welcome, comforting constant for him, the rhythm of doing laundry every day and sitting in the sun as it dries.”
— Todd Mauldin., NV
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“My boyfriend sweats a lot when he sleeps. Like, a lot. Like, walking through the desert for a day, wet, sweaty grossness. I say, “Boyfriend you gotta wash the sheets…when you do your laundry wash them, please??” I get home from work, see him working on the computer since he works from home, and ask, “Hey Honey bunny, did you do the laundry?” He replies, “No I didn’t have time to go today.” And I say, “THE SHEETS ARE DISGUSTING.”
However, he grabs my arm and says, “Well I think I have a temporary solution for now.” He brings me into the bedroom and lifts up the sheets and shows me about 10 dryer sheets he had laid down between the mattress and the sheet and smiles.
I say, “You are unbelievable,” and go do the laundry myself.
— Rebecca and Aaron
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I turned everything pink after leaving a single little girl’s sock in with the white towels and t-shirts. I still wear that pink shirt.
— Cole Gamble, CA
I’m proud to say that when it comes to the laundry I’m a rock star in that small realm. That and cooking are the few things that my wife has never developed a skilled touch at. It will win me no medals. But, when my wife offers to do the laundry to give me a break from it, I quickly say “no, I got this covered, what would you like for dinner?”.
Wear those newly-dyed pink socks with pride, guys.Pink Socks and King Tut