For 6 weeks during the summer of 2003 I didn’t do laundry even one time. And I could’ve gone for another three weeks, without breaking a sweat (metaphorically… I was in Florida in June, so I was literally sweating by 6:45 AM every morning. But metaphorically not sweaty at all.)
Toward the end of the time, one of the girls on my staff team acted all disgusted that I hadn’t done laundry, so I thought I’d prove my own hygiene by breaking out a consecutive string of 13 straight clean shirts to close out the summer project.
My secret? I had driven to Florida in my near-teal 1998 Nissan Sentra, and therefore had viewed it as one big suitcase, cramming it full of every article of clothing I owned. I had entered the summer with a plan not to do any laundry, and I was sticking with it.
Related: I wore a swimsuit every day, and counted it as washing when I jumped in the pool.
Also distantly related: I don’t want to tell you how many times I’ve done laundry since I’ve been married, because it might ruin a good thing I’ve got going. Let’s just say that my wife is amazing and leave it at that.
I treated support raising that year the same way as laundry that summer. Once I had finished my initial support, getting to the elusive 100%, I had figuratively packed my car so full of t-shirts that I was all set to thoroughly ignore my financial needs.
Not such a great plan.
It ranks up there with the time me and my brother decided to jog past the “no trespassing” sign in the we-thought-was-vacant forest near our house. Turns out theres’s an old man with a shotgun who lives there. And we should be leaving now, in a zig-zag pattern.
Yeah, taking the same approach to raising support that I did to pimples in 8th grade (ignore and hope the problem doesn’t get noticed by any potential girlfriends) wasn’t the wisest move, in retrospect.
Call this advice for single guys: find a woman who does your laundry by being a guy who pays his bills on time.
Can I get a witness?