Finding Meaning in the Rinse Cycle

We humans often struggle with a fundamental, existential question: Why are we here? Why were we put on Earth?

I used to wonder that myself, but then I had a blinding revelation: I am here to do laundry.

Sure, I go to work and subscribe to the Atlantic Monthly and call my mother on weekends. Yes, I have fathered two daughters, and I brush my dog to remove dead hair.

I give to my church, and I once drove My Lovely Wife to the emergency room when she cut her finger while slicing a tomato. Though I do or have done all of these things, none of them is the reason that I was put on this planet.

I was put here to do laundry.

Consider: When Saturday dawns, my first thought is: "Today's the day to do the laundry." When I say "do the laundry," I mean "start the laundry." For laundry is never done. Laundry is a process, a way of life.

After breakfast, I cinch the top of the white cotton bag that serves as the hamper for My Lovely Wife and me and, like Santa delivering stinky clothes, I carry the bag downstairs. For the rest of the day, I scream at my children to bring down their laundry so that I may wash it.

By Sunday, my kids have grudgingly brought down their laundry. Their laundry is interesting. Many times it is not actually dirty. It includes clothes I washed the previous week that never got put away.

This used to bother me, for it seemed like I was doing more work than I had to, washing clean clothes. I also wondered if perhaps this was bad for the environment, wasteful of water. But then I realized two things: Laundry is my purpose in life. And if the Earth should run out of water because of my daughters' inability to put away their clothes, well, it will serve them right. I should be gone by then.

Their dirty clothes are interesting, too. Nothing is right-side out. Nothing. Even things that you think wouldn't be that hard to take off without inverting -- a blouse that buttons up the front, say -- are twisted inside out.

This is occasionally comical. I remember one time when my daughters were younger, I discovered something that was almost artistic in its presentation. It was underwear, tights, pants and socks, all locked together inside out, as if it had been peeled off from the waist down in a single movement, without any constituent element being removed first.

It looked like the skin shed by a snake.

I used to turn their clothes right-side out, but now I don't bother. (My purpose in life is just to do laundry, not necessarily to do it well.)

I do make sure to check their pockets, though. I learned this after spending an afternoon scraping the remains of a melted crayon off the inside of the dryer with the tip of a flathead screwdriver.