Would it kill you to pre-treat your laundry?

Or change a roll of toilet paper?

But getting back to today's subject -- pre-treating one's laundry.

I don't mind doing the laundry. Really. But it really pisses me off when, after I tell the spouse or kid to "pre-treat that really nasty stain," they totally ignore me and just throw whatever it is in the hamper -- and I wind up washing it and drying it and then when I'm about to fold it see that the stain or (more typically) stains have now set in and the shirt or pants are probably done for. Sigh.

Anyone else have this problem? Or a solution?

On a related note, I wonder if you can still buy Calgon water softener....

Operation Do Your Own Stinkin' Laundry

This summer, my daughter, who will be 13, is going to a sleepaway program where the attendees have to do their own laundry. So rather than wait and let her figure it out (visions of overflowing washing machines and shrunken clothes and weeping child calling long distance dancing in my head), I decided to teach her the fine art of washing, drying, and folding clothes now.

And I am happy to say that we have now completed Phase One of Operation Do Your Own Stinkin' Laundry (learning how to use the washing machine and dryer) and are about to enter Phase Two, folding.

I was tempted to just make her watch this classic YouTube video titled "Japanese way of folding t-shirts!"



But I fear that would doom us to failure -- and a fear of folding.

Then I found this video explaining the Japanese t-shirt folding method in English (which I am unable to embed in this blog post), to which my reaction was "You have got to be effing kidding." (On the plus side, while looking at the video I found this related video on How to Rick Roll Somebody.)

There goes the buzzer on the dryer, people! Time for folding boot camp. Wish us luck!

UPDATED: I am happy to report that Phase Two of Operation Do Your Own Stinkin' Laundry: You Gotta Know When to Fold 'Em went off without a hitch (though I am taking J-THREE-O's word on this). Next up: Operation Change Your Own Gosh Darn Toilet Paper Roll.