Humor: Peggers can't be choosers

Peggers can't be choosers

Hanging out the washing was something I never used to think about a lot.

Not when I was a bachelor, anyway.

There were always more important things to worry about. Which party to go to? Which fast-food joint to visit for dinner? Which dirty pair of socks
were the least dirty to wear to the party or fast-food joint?

Washing clothes was something that I often did, albeit begrudgingly.

But I didn't have a think about it very deeply.
I figured that was why I paid money for a washing machine.
It had a electronic control panel and 18 different wash cycles. While I
went and did something more useful, like eat fast food or look for stray
socks, it washed and rinsed and washed again and then spun the washing almost dry.
That was the one drawback. It was only ALMOST dry.

The rest was up to me.

No worries. Australia, as you may or may not know, was the birthplace of
the Hill's Hoist.
Yep, we invented the rotary clothesline. It is our contribution to humanity.

I used to live in Tasmania, the southern island state, where it rains a
fair bit.

On the surface, it might have appeared that I was fairly carefree about my pegging-out-the-washing method. You would have been excused for thinking
that I had a Get It Out, Get It Up and Get It Back In Before It Rains Again
style.

But it was more refined than that.
I had a particular method for hanging out trousers, shirts, socks and
underwear, and I didn't think there was a whole lot of room for improvement.

How wrong I was.

My technique got turned upside down, in some cases literally, when I got
married five years or so ago and moved to Canberra.

"What ARE you doing, John?" my bride Katherine exclaimed during our first joint excursion to the clothes line.

"Helping you to hang out the washing, Sweetness," I replied matter-of-factly.

"But you're not shaking the items first," Katherine said.

"Shaking them? Why would I shake them?" I said. "They're not martinis and I'm not James Bond."

"It cuts down on the ironing that needs to be done if you shake them,"
Katherine said.

"Oh," I said, and started to shake for the first time.

Alas, my reformation did not stop there though.

Next, Katherine watched in horror as I pegged out a pair of jeans from the
bottom of the legs, like I always did.

"What are you doing NOW?" she asked.

"I'm pegging out the jeans," I said.

"Um, they are upside down."

I just starred back blankly. As far as I was concerned, trousers were meant
to be hung upside down. I felt confident it's the way the Pope does it. And the Queen. And George W. Bush.

"They'll never dry like that," Katherine said, and I made the appropriate
adjustment.

Over the next weeks, I changed more of my ways.
Put simply, His way became Her way.

I learnt the right way to peg out women's thingies.

I learnt that it was not actually a law of the universe that handkerchiefs
could only ever have one peg. You were permitted to splurge on two or three if you had enough to go around.

Then our son Jack, who is now four, came along and I learnt how to peg our his little outfits.

I feel born again.

I can honestly say I am a much more rounded human being, having been shown
the right way to peg out washing.

Or, at least, I thought I did until tonight.

A workmate confessed to a group of us that he always pegs his
washing out in a colour-co-ordinated fashion.

He uses red pegs on red shirts, blue pegs on blue shirts and yellow pegs on yellow shirts etc.
Sometimes he might splash out on a blue-and-red tea-towel and use one red peg and one blue peg, but usually he does not like to mix his colours.

Can you believe that? That's what I call a hang-up!

I cannot imagine how much this must add to the once-simple and quick task
of pegging out washing.

This man is currently single.

With his colour co-ordination habit, it beats me how he finds time to go to
fast-food joints and parties.

©January 6, 2001, John Martin. All Rights Reserved.

NB: I called this site Dunno because I kept drawing a blank when I had to put a name to it