Beta Mum's Blog Beta Mum on 10 Mar 2008 08:44 pm
The Iron-ing Man
Another housebound ramble from Formerly Blog Fodder…
I don’t know what the Latin for ironing board is, but the Romans must have had them, because whenever you see Charlton Heston in a toga, he’s immaculately turned out.
Presumably they never had to iron their own clothes though, because there were always plenty of slaves around and the minimum wage hadn’t been invented.
The point is, my education is severely lacking.
I can conjugate Latin verbs like a good’un but bellum bellum bellum, belli bello bello, doesn’t get the ironing done.
My Mum didn’t teach me either – not because of my ‘Y’ chromosome, she didn’t teach my sisters either.
She just did it all herself.
Now though, it’s become a problem.
This morning I couldn’t find a single t-shirt to wear. The drawer was bare.
I found them all cowering in a cupboard in the bathroom, presumably awaiting a smooth operator.
Beta Mum is at work.
I can’t simply call for her to come home because she was never really inducted in the arcane art.
She doesn’t do ironing.
Maureen, our former two-hours-a-week lady who did, is hors de combat. Flying across the Channel to tackle a mound of ironing could be considered excessive.
That leaves me. Time to remove the brand new iron from its box and climb the mountain.
If it had just been t-shirts I think I’d have coped, but the trouble was the kids’ clothes also need ironing, not to mention some of BM’s more exotic garments.
Do tights need ironing in the first place?
Can you iron silk?
What temperature setting should I use?
Why does the iron constantly dribble water?
Why is that no matter how hard I attack the clothes there seem to be more creases at the end of my labours than when I started?
Why does the flex contort itself into intricate knots?
Which leads me to a bigger question…
Why do we bother at all?
Ne fronti crede, as the Romans might have said, while smugly donning their crease-free garments.
Note from Beta Mum -
1) No point ironing kids’ clothes when they’re covered in grime, snot & sludge within seconds of being put on
2) Buy stuff that doesn’t need ironing. Bri-nylon is very fetching on a man.
3) I caught you ironing your pants. What is your problem?
on 10 Mar 2008 at 10:25 pm 1.Potty Mummy said …
Or of course you could always get your mum over to stay. (Cue ‘Nooooooooooooooooo!’ And ‘delete, delete, delete!’ from Beta Mum)
on 11 Mar 2008 at 12:10 am 2.guineapigmum said …
I often wonder what it would do for global warming, and how many nuclear power stations we could shut down, if everyone just gave up ironing. We’d have to do it all at once so that no one would feel left out. After all, smooth clothes are only convention. Hanging stuff up in the wind does almost as well as ironing I find.
on 11 Mar 2008 at 6:04 pm 3.Expatmum said …
Apparently if you take most clothes out of the dryer as it stops, they don’t need ironing. I wouldn’t know as I always forget they’re in there and everything looks like a snotty hanky when retrieved. I love the fact that you are even thinking about it - mine wouldn’t.
on 12 Mar 2008 at 12:32 pm 4.A Lost Writer said …
Ah…what a wonderful man you are for trying.
I must say I trained my better half early on - we worked weird shifts and it was essential. He had an almost iron-free existence before we tied the knot, but after that, he decided he wanted to be a natty dresser. 
And now he beautifully does our son’s school uniforms too.
on 14 Mar 2008 at 9:43 pm 5.Rosie said …
I am still asking the very same questions. But you were caught ironing your pants??
on 15 Mar 2008 at 4:19 pm 6.Beta Mum said …
PM - the mother-in-law is a lovely lady, but perhaps not quite so capable of climbing ironing-mountains as she once was. I think her 8 children probably did it for her.
Guinea - I find creases fall out best on the body, but I’m willing to try wind as an alternative. When it stops raining.
ex-pat - we don’t have a drier.
lost writer (I empathise with the name) Formerly Blog Fodder not only irons his pants, but also the tee-shirts he wears underneath other things.
Rosie - he was caught red-handed.