"RoseGarden" - - - - - - - from - nscave

In the past we have gone through sweeping up, making the bed and other things. I also mentioned my wife used to wait on me hand and foot. I became a senior spoiled brat. After her passing I am continually exploring new aspects in life that I always took for granted.

So it finally came to ironing. The wash and wear principle only goes so far. Once your shirt collars look like a rope and your pants look like a stipple ceiling, it is time to call on iron man.

Well that's not so hard. After all I spent time in the air force and that was part of the daily routine when I was single - fifty years ago. What can be so hard about ironing a few clothes?

So out comes the iron, add a little water for steam and plug 'er in, on comes the blue pilot light. (Everything has a blue pilot light these days.)  Poof! No electricity, no lights, gone. That was exciting, the stove still tells the time of day, what gives? Sounds like the air conditioner out in the living room is a little silent. So you can't plug an iron and and air conditioner in at the same time? Well yeah, a projection TV too.

Well a little visit to circuit breaker city and not turning the air conditioner back on fixes that up. Don't let the sweat drops fall on the shirt though. And whatever you do, keep the iron moving.

I can remember way, way, back when, and we used to have an ironing board. But I hadn't seen that in forty years. My wife, like a lot of women, always threw a big heavy towel on the table and it works like dream whip. Well not for me.

I plunk this shirt down on the towel covered table and iron the back from the inside, with the sleeve under it. Diagonal creases in the middle of sleeves is a new fashion trend. Not a problem a little steam will flatten that out.

Flip it over to do the sides, and the cord gets caught in the table cloth almost capsizing iron, shirt, towel and table cloth all in one slick motion. I think of that TV advertisement: "Are you catching this camera guy?"

The operation is temporarily suspended while we rearrange table cloth, readjust towel and retrieve the almost suspended shirt. Its got food crumbs on one side! What? I cleaned the table - thoroughly! Recheck around table cloth, no crumbs. Of course not, they are all stuck on the shirt.

Fortunately I discovered the crumbs before applying any steam, so they shook off easily. That's the story of one shirt. One shirt out of eight. And I am not going to mention the pants, that's another story.

I will never know how she and other women can iron on a towel on a table so easily and so quickly. I was first in line at the cashier this morning with a brand new ironing board under my arm.

-=One Day At A Time=-

This work by NSCAVE is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License