what I enjoy not doing

A while back country dweller talked about the things he most enjoyed not doing. Now I'm not sure if it was a formal meme, but I'm going to officially tag myself (I'm it!) and follow his lead. I liked his list, and many of his items would be on mine as well, but I'm going to concentrate on the one thing I most enjoy not doing that he neglected to mention. (I'm assuming that he enjoys not doing this one thing either, although of course I could be completely wrong.) Care to take a stab at what it is? Nope, that's not it. No, not that either. Give up?

Okay. One word. Ironing.

Oh, I know, you're probably a bit disappointed at my choice as it might seem both dull and a bit anti-climactic even, and maybe not in keeping with the image you possibly formed of me when I said I'd be sprinkling cleaning tips throughout this blog, but there you have it. One of the things my super-busy mom taught me was that ironing is a big no-no. And though not officially forbidden, it clearly and strictly was frowned upon, and mom successfully impressed upon all of us that the lonely iron in the closet was for dire emergency purposes only. Can't say I blame her. With five (5!) kids to more or less raise on her own, working nights, running a household, maintaining a garden, cooking from scratch, and putting herself through school in her early fifties, I think having to iron would have led directly to homicide. I'm also quite sure mom recognized her latent criminal inclinations, and I'm surprised she didn't banish the deadly weapon (who knew it had the potential to lead to such heinous acts?) altogether. At any rate, we learned early on that it was better for no one to even go near it. So, we didn't.

Instead, mom extolled the virtues of fabrics that didn't wrinkle as much (polyester—excellent, cotton-polyester—not bad, cotton—not as good, linen and rayon—you've got to be joking), and taught us to retrieve clothes the very moment (and not a half second later) the dryer stopped. Then (quickly, QUICKLY!), we neatly folded or hung the items away. And to ensure we wouldn't become iron-lovers on the sly, she regularly poked fun at anyone who even dared to admit to ironing sheets, or shirts, or pants, or heaven forbid, underwear, and well, you get the drift. And it worked. I rarely used an iron myself when I left home, and even got rid of the space-waster a few years ago. Oh, and if you're thinking drycleaners, nope, my mom didn't believe in them either. And being my mother's daughter, when I once worked at the drycleaners for a short stint I often ended up saying to the customer, "Are you kidding? You could easily throw that into the washing machine." But not when my boss was around. Snort.

Mind you, isn't ironing enjoying some type of revival* these days? Like knitting?

Um, no thanks.

* Okay, I do see how ironing could be relaxing in a meditative kind of way, but unless you have oodles of time and no better way to get relaxed, I'd say nix it if you can.