Wife issues husband rare apology

One weekend, my husband and I found ourselves saddled with about nine extra loads of laundry. We are really excellent about laundry, and we usually do a load every other day for our family of three.

We’re like the Golden Gate Bridge of laundering: The bridge is painted continuously. Our laundry is always being done continuously.

After I wash it, I hang it to air-dry, but sometimes thicker or urgently-needed items make it into the dryer. Or, there’s a basket of clothes to fold. 

This, however, was an additional series of loads after our many, many, many, many, many holiday houseguests left. It was a family of five, and because there were children, more things than usual were crummy, sticky, and just… used. Think about it: they needed ten bath and beach towels alone.

For years, Claus has gotten on me about how I should fill our top-loading washer. Because we use powdered soap, he likes to put it on the bottom, run the water to dissolve it, then add the clothes. 

I have blown him off. I always added the soap last because I want to know exactly how many clothes I can put in before it gets too full.

Every great while, the detergent doesn’t dissolve and it comes out in little chunks after it’s done. He hates that. That usually happens when I add something big like a blanket.

I should have listened to him years ago, but it was so trivial I didn’t even want to give it the mental space to process it. This time, a blanket came out of the washer with a soapy patch.

I looked at that and decided it was time to listen to my husband. We had four more comforters to go, and I had been exhausted and sleep-deprived from all those people (namely, children.) Every extra mistake could cost me energy to fix.

I walked in the house and announced to Claus, “You were right and I was wrong. I’ll do the laundry your way, now.”

Our winter housemate, Christian, was home as well. He went for a piece of paper to jot down the date and time of the momentous and rare occasion. Previous to this, he thought he’d have more luck spotting a unicorn. 

Claus, however, reached for his phone. “Can you say that again? I’m going to record it and listen to it on a loop every day.” It’ll be 2027 and he’ll still be playing my concession speech and laughing about it with Christian, like, “Remember the one time Diane said I was right about something?”