The dryer broke the other day and it’s so old that the
repairman said the parts have been discontinued, but he’d see if he could
locate them through his contacts and over the internet. Meanwhile we will not
have a clothes dryer for the time being, and most likely we will need a new
one. It can only break so many times, and there are only so many parts left out
there in the ether.
So this morning as the sun was pushing up above the trees I
was out hanging wash on a clothesline. It brought back memories of when my mom
had an elaborate umbrella clothes line contraption that consisted of a pole
with rows of lines between arms that reached out from the top center. My mom
could turn it so that she never had to move, bringing the next set of empty
lines to her. It worked out well,
especially for a family of six.
Our line is a bit simpler – a poly coated green line
stretched between two trees, about 25’ long. We are only two people, so we
don’t really need a whole lot more. And to be honest, I don’t know if they still
make the umbrella like contraptions anymore. One thing I did notice was that
the wooden clothespins we just bought were made of less wood and lighter
springs than my mom’s of years ago. Back then hers were made to last; these
clothes pins, after two days, are popping apart and also don’t have the spring
power to clamp things down! Oh well. I should know by know that in America
cheap is the quality people want.
While I was hanging up the bath towels, socks, shirts, etc I
was reminded of a poem I once read years ago about how one could tell what kind
of sex life a person had by the type and colour of underwear they hung on the
line…it wasn’t a “dirty” poem, but one of descriptive observation. Actually it was sort
of deep. There were a lot of metaphors throughout the poem, but that’s not
where I am going to go with this.
I think that if the poet had looked at our clothes line she
wouldn’t have found much inspiration, and I sorta laughed to myself. I think if
we did have hammocks and thongs and things we wouldn’t put them on the line for
everyone to see anyway…I guess she was seeing an extroverts wash when the words
came to her!
About the only thing one can tell about our wash is that
fashion isn’t a big deal to us, and that we don’t much dress to go anywhere.
Except for a few colourful pairs of socks, we just have plain stuff, most of it
farm and animal stained, thread bare because we do not throw anything away until
our underwear shows. I should say until our plain underwear shows!
So I am thinking that what we need to do is to hit the
dollar store and buy the most bizarre and colorful underwear we can find and
just hang it out there with a riding crop for the nosey world to see! That will give the neighbors and visitors
something to wonder about for a while…or the two of us 50 something’s may get a
poem of our own. Or at least some funny looks!
