I had a friend in college who, for my 20th birthday, gifted me a week’s worth of ironing. For an entire week, he’d iron anything I gave him. Anything. It was the perfect present because (1) he was good at ironing and I wasn’t, (2) he enjoyed ironing and I hated it (but I also didn’t like wearing wrinkled clothes), and (3) it didn’t cost him anything (we were poor college kids who spent our money on beer, not dry cleaning).
Apparently, my roommates also thought it was a great gift because they sneaked in a few shirts and pants for him to press, too. After all, we shared clothes, so I guess that made it okay, right? My 20-year-old self thought so, but looking back as a 50-year-old, I’m not so sure. Sorry about that, Don. And thank you.
Fast forward 30 years, and I wish Don Frank was around to iron for me. Especially this past weekend.
Saturday was Homecoming (or HoCo as everyone calls it) and my high school junior decided on Thursday night (at 10PM, naturally) that he was going with a few buddies. I was happy for him, but also vexed by the late notice. Did he have pants that fit? A shirt? Shoes? Okay, I wasn’t really worried about shoes, but he’s grown a few inches since the spring when he last wore long pants, and I was convinced anything he had that was appropriate would be too short. He was not concerned and assured me he had something.
He didn’t.
But Friday he had school and a football game, so this wasn’t going to be addressed until Saturday … and if you read this blog regularly, you know I don’t do well with last-minute changes.
After rummaging through a box of hand-me-down button-downs from his older brother, we finally found something that fit. Of course, it was wrinkled. Given that the dance was in an hour, it was too late to bring it to the dry cleaner to be pressed. And because he’s worse at ironing than I am, the responsibility fell to me. F*ck.
I’m good at many things, but ironing is (still) not one of them. I blame my mother and my junior high home economics teacher because neither of them taught me how to do it.
My mother wasn’t a big ironer (if that’s a word). At home, the ironing board was more of a landing space for shirts and pants that were headed to the dry cleaner. She tried to show me how to do it once, but it didn’t stick. Probably because it wasn’t done on the regular during my formative years. What you see is what you know, and I didn’t see ironing, so …
Then in junior high home ec class, we learned how to stuff and sew a pillow, bake hamantaschen from scratch, and cook lentil soup — none of which served me in the future. I haven’t made hamantaschen or lentil soup since, and I prefer to buy my throw pillows from Home Goods or Pottery Barn, rather than pull out the sewing machine that’s collecting dust in my basement and I never really learned how to use.
What would have been more useful? Learning to properly sew a button back on a jacket and iron a button-down shirt without making even more creases and lines. The upside: My lack of knowledge/skill helps keep the local dry cleaner in business. Score one for the small business owner.
In the end, it didn’t really matter that my ironing skills were lacking. He had a good time with his friends — even if he was wrinkled and tie-less.
-LJDT
P.S. I know an iron maiden is a medieval torture device, not a woman who presses clothes, but it made for a good title.
