Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Grubby hubby, dirty Daddy

"wha, ha...."
Yesterday as I gazed so fondly out the window at the tractor making its rounds, I forgot about summer laundry.  As my husband entered the house yesterday unrecognizable, covered in grease and dirt, I couldn't help but stutter gibberish as summer laundry came flooding back to me.
For those of you who have clean husbands, this may all seem exaggerated, but really it's what comes walking into my laundry room all summer long.
We married in June so washing his summer laundry became my duty right after returning from our honeymoon.  Welcome home, honey!!
The first week I did all our laundry I had some serious ranch wife reality therapy.  I sorted through his pile appalled at the sight of motor grease stains from thigh to knee, grass stains, cow manure, blood, and any variety of things found on a ranch.  I truly thought they were ruined; I'd never in my life seen something so disgusting.  I piled them up and planned to take them out to the burn barrel.  I didn't know how we were going to afford getting him so many new clothes if he kept this up.  That evening as I carried a loaded black bag to the burn barrel, Brian stopped me and asked if I had snakes in the bag based on the way I was holding it out in front of me.  When I explained I planned on burning his clothes, he almost rolled on the floor in laughter.  He told me that was how his clothes always looked in the summer while he was working on equipment, taking care of cows, and plowing fields.  In fact, he use to tease his mother that he only  returned home to the ranch from college in the summer to make sure she still knew how to remove stains.  He suggested I call her.
The woman is magic....I took the clothes up and watched her spray the jeans and t-shirts with Shout until they were sopping, let them sit for 20 minutes (during this time I proceeded to swear up and down that this was never going to work and she had to just go in and buy new jeans and t-shirts and tell people she'd gotten the old ones clean), put them in warm water to soak for a while, and then finally put them on the longest wash cycle.  Poof....unbelievable but they came out not only not ruined but clean.  Shout really does get EVERYTHING out!
I now by Shout buy the gallon, put on some tunes, and get to spraying.  It's become a summer ritual of the life I've been blessed to have.

1 comment:

  1. I love this! How true it is. I watch my mom remove stains just like that from my dad's clothes my whole life and then I married a doctor and while it isn't cow manure and dirt; it is blood and human bodily fluids, I can so relate!

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