Gentle Cycle with Like Colors, No Wife

So, I like to think that I'm the perfect wife. I've only been one for a tiny bit under a year, but after a few bumps in the road, I really think that I'm quite good. I eat all of the meals my husband cooks without complaint, I pull up rugs for him so he can sweep and point out each crumb he happens to miss, and if I'm at Target, I'm sure to pick up a cute top so I can look nice for him. It's really a win-win situation for both of us and has taken a little under year to perfect this arrangement.

One of the bumps early on in our marriage was the laundry. I had volunteered to do our laundry, rather unwillingly, but I would rather not have my husband try to fold my underwear. I'm also really specific about the socks that go together based on there level of elasticity. It's one of the very few things that I am persnickety about, but he agreed.

One of the first times I had done our laundry, he was watching as I pulled out clothes from the hamper that we shared. I put them in my own little piles of clothes that I thought went together and would be washed in the same water temperature. This was NOT the way that he would have sorted the laundry, he informed me. I told him tough, get over it, this is the new way that it was going to be done. He reluctantly backed off and let me finish the laundry in peace.

About a month later, I decided that I wanted to wash rugs and just put them all together in the washing machine. I threw the red kitchen rug in with the sky blue bathroom rugs. Perhaps you might have flashbacks to kindergarten finger painting and realize this may not be the best idea. I personally like the "new" purple rugs. Whoops. A shake of his head, I had another mistrust in my laundry skills. It could happen to anyone that forgot the basics of color combining!

To top that off, the following laundry cycle, I was watching TV, waiting to change the wash into the dryer. My husband came in wondering if I had seen his cell phone. Hmmm...couldn't recall seeing it on the kitchen counter. Would I please call it, he sweetly asked. After 4 phone calls to no vibration, we realized that he had left his phone in a pair of jeans that happen to be finishing the rinse and spin cycle.

"Are you kidding me?!?!" he bellowed when he realized that no amount of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation would bring his phone back to life. I offered my old phone to him, since I had just gotten a brand new one very recently. He took the phone and told me not to touch his clothes and he would do his own laundry from here on out. He found his old hamper and made a nice little set up in his closet to only put his clothes in. "OMG, c u l8tr, I think my bf thinks I'm of child brain level when it comes to laundry," I texted a friend on my new phone.

Everything has been hunky-dory and I have made no real mistakes besides the occasional piece of paper inside a pocket washed in a dark load. But that happens to everyone, I think.

After a vacation a few weeks ago, we had so much laundry to get done that I offered to do his and I promised to be very careful. He agreed only because he wanted his favorite dress socks clean to wear that week. The first 3 loads were great. Then I put a gray/green load in and let the good times roll, feeling pretty proud of myself. After it was time to take out the clothes, I opened the lid to the sickest smell. I thought it might have been the garbage, but when I brought the hanging clothes in to air dry, the smell was still there. How could these clothes smell so much like fish?

And then I saw it, a green shirt of mine that has two small pockets in the front. During the vacation I had put my usual artillery of vitamins and supplements in my pocket to eat with breakfast, but I had forgotten to take them...including the 2 fish oil tablets! I washed those clothes several times until I was sure the smell was gone, but seriously?? What kind of black cloud follows me around where something like that happens EVERYTIME I do my husband's laundry??

Or is it all part of my master perfect wife plan?