(Not really.)
My boss's wife just had some major orthopedic surgery last week and, having not bounced back quite as quickly as predicted, had to spend a few days in the rehab hospital. But she's probably going to be discharged today. We were discussing this yesterday and he was, frankly, a little freaked out. "I'm going to have to nurse her."
"You're a medical professional. I'm sure you can handle it."
"I don't do nursing."
"You'll need to be the nurse, the PT..."
"...the driver, the grocery shopper, the housekeeper... I have a dilemma. I'm trying to figure out whether to go buy some new shirts or learn how to iron."
It's a good thing, boys and girls, that I wasn't drinking anything, because I did a spit-take. "Seriously? SERIOUSLY? You don't know how to iron a shirt??"
"Uh, no--"
"You can take them to the laundry, you know."
"Yeah. I have a bunch of them that are washed but that she didn't iron, though. (Ed note: God. You'd think the woman would've ironed before her major knee surgery.) They'd probably just iron them for me, right?"
"I would think."
"I dunno. I could probably figure it out. There are a bunch of buttons. And something to do with steam. But it's probably not that hard."
"No, it really isn't."
"I wouldn't want to get too good at it though. I'd have to leave a few scorch marks--"
"Yeah, yeah. If you prove yourself competent, you'll have to do it all the time. Typical male thinking."
"I think I'll just go buy some shirts."
"You kill me."
The funniest part of this whole conversation, kids? I had to bite my tongue to stop from suggesting that *I'd* iron his shirts if he brought them into work. You know how I feel about doing laundry. It's embarrassing, but there you go.
xoxo
5 comments:
Let me point out that he's not the only guy you know that didn't have a clue about ironing.
Instead of offering to do the ironing, why don't you offer to show him how to do it? After all, I now, after your tutoring, have a vague idea of what to do with an iron. It's no match for your mad skillz, but is a lot better than knowing nothing at all, my previous state. It's probably a skill he can actually use in the future like, say, when he's at a hotel for some conference and his shirts got all crinkled up in his carryon.
Or you could suggest LLBean's no iron oxford shirts (which can be so magically unwrinkled I think they're irradiated or otherwise treated with some dangerous, but very flat, chemicals) and/or have him go to the Metropolitan Laundry and have them do some serious two dimensional folding on those bad boys.
Yeah, I know! I thought it was bad when I had to show you how to iron a shirt, but you only made it to your mid-40s in blissful ignorance of spray starch. E's considerably older. OTOH, it's the being married over 30 years to an obliging spouse that's allowed his state of grace.
I'll have to tell him about the LL Bean shirts. He lives in Burlington, you know.
Of all the wrinkle-free, no-iron, non-iron, etc dress shirts I've tried, the LLBean Oxfords are definitely the best at wrinkling the least.
That may be because Bean seems to use a heavier fabric than the others, but I prefer that anyway (I like the way the heavier fabric feels, and I kinda feel the heavier fabric might look better, too).
But they are pretty amazing, just hang'em up, right out of the drier and or tossed in a suitcase, and it seems like the next day they're flat as a board (or flatter than I'll ever make them with an iron). Note, I've only every tried the "classic" Oxford from Bean, I don't know if the pinpoints are just as good, as I don't like that type of (more expensive) fabric as much. Too slick for me.
Bean should pay you to write for their catalog. Speaking of which...next post!
I'm all for wrinkle-free in general, but in an emergency, he should know that body heat will take out all but the most stubborn wrinkles in 20 minutes. However, it doesn't provide starch.
Were you truly malevolent, you could have given him instructions on how to iron a shirt whilst wearing it. That has passed into the Darwin Awards cliche category, and yet some of my gender do it.
When you visited him in the burn ward, you could then have told him that he screwed up because that *never* happens.
See: I *am* headed for the 7th level of hell!
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