My husband and I fold laundry together. It’s one of the only chores we can share and still enjoy each other’s company, not only because it’s the only household job that neither of us has passively and purposely fumbled to get out of, but because we joke around a lot while we’re folding, like we just met.
The conversation is also mixed with nostalgia.
“When did our baby start wearing size 12 jeans?” We hold the boys’ pants up to ourselves and observe how close they are to towering over us and asking for the car keys.
“I remember when those used to fit James.”
It’s one of the few times that we stop and take a gander at our stuff and think about what we’ve created together.
I hold up a pair of Skye’s man underwear. The waistband is shot. I hold them up and shake them out and they still look pathetic.
“Look at these ratty tatty unders I’m folding. You know your marriage is built on love when you’re folding underwear like this.”
He reaches around to the open drawer behind him and pulls out a handful of my underwear. “You should talk. You’ve got some real winners in here that I folded.” He holds them up and I cringe. “Oh, yea. Those.”
It was one of those winners that landed on the locker room floor at the gym yesterday. It sat there between my locker and the bench where I was getting dressed without my glasses on. It wouldn’t have been too embarrassing if I was in the locker room with total strangers. But I look over at the lady next to my locker, who was there long enough to have seen the underwear fall, five minutes before I realize it’s mine. She’s a teacher at my son’s school. Awesome. I can’t act like “it was there”, grab my stuff out of my locker, step over the underwear and leave.
We look right at each other and look away. Locker room code for I see you, but this is awkward, so I’m going to act like I don’t know you. We normally say hi to each other but not anymore, ever. Not after she saw my ratty tatties.
Subscribe to the
RSS feed or 
Email Updates.Help us promote this article by bookmarking it to your favorite social network via an icon below:
You are so funny!! Why is it men are incapable of throwing away old underwear? My husband will keep wearing them until I throw them away. I at least stop wearing them if they are dying. LOL
I am a new follower from Calling All Commenters on MBC. Check out my blogs when you get a chance. Thanks!
~Allison
http://the-winfields-7.blogspot.com
http://luv-books.blogspot.com
even I wear cute underwear and NO ONE sees them EVER. I think I know what you are getting for your next birthday
Just make sure they’re not the old lady type or the in the butt crack type. EW.
LOL! At least you HAD underwear.
This reminded me of a rare trip to the day spa… One woman felt the need to lay down on a bench in the middle of the spa. While she was (barely) wearing a towel, she bent her knees, putting her feet flat on the bench. You couldn’t be anywhere in half the spa without getting the ‘full-on money shot’ (as they would say in the porn industry).
Maybe show up to the gym in a sequined red thong next time and just let her wonder.
I LOVE your sense of humor!!!! Welcome to my small blog and I totally understand…I used to swim at the YMCA until I could hear my students from an after school program yelling “Hey Art Lady!” and I was in my bountiful buff
). Imagine and Live in Peace, Mary Helen Fernandez Stewart
That was a sweet picture you gave me: you and your husband talking and folding underwear together. As for your son’s teacher, maybe you should invite her over to join in the ritual. You never know where that might lead.
Gee, it’s the little things like folding laundry that keeps us together–how true. My wife and I share these simple moments and turn them into joyful ones. Nice post!
This is an endearing and funny story. keep them coming.
Thanks, Theresa!
From what I read you leave your pants in a right state LOL j/k
I get mistaken for a Victoria Secrets model ALL. THE. TIME.
I’ve thought about playing the evil twin but if I can’t pull it off I’ll have to find a new gym. Oddly, I have no problems with her seeing me changing. But seeing my underwear on the ground? That’s different.
maybe it’s time to go commando!
Who needs underwear!!??
I say this is a great icebreaker for the next time you see this lady. You can be all, hey, so….seen any good thongs lately? And then she’ll be all, it’s so funny you bring that up because….and then you will have a riproaring, sidesplitting, hootenany of a convo about undies. Trust me, it works.
Personally, I engage as many people as I can in conversations about my underwear on a daily basis. Today they’re red. (Sadly, I had to peek to be sure. Fortunately no one was walking by my office just then…)
i love you, amber van camper. Your suggestion might get me a blog follow up! It could go super well or terribly awkward. Awkward always makes the better story….
LOL Amy. You know this is a good reason to not go to the gym. LOL. Well, just think that you wont have to talk to her anymore when your son leaves her class. I bet those parent teacher conferences will be a lot more fun now!
What a delightful post. Marriages survive because couples find a level of comfort with issues that embarrassed us when we were dating, and because we learn the rules of fighting and develop what my father called “combat compatibility.” And it is expensive as hell to get a divorce.
I got up the nerve and courage to let go of several ratty tattys a couple months ago. It took 3 trips to the kitchen trash can to look at them before I turned away. Why is it they are at their most comfy when they’re falling apart? I’ll wear my new ones at half mast today in honor of their fallen comrades
I stopped wearing underwear so I don’t have to talk to my wife.
I quit a gym once because the lockers were too close together and every time I would reach down to tie my shoes, or put my socks on, the guy with the locker next to me would come back from the shower or another would be done with his workout and I would start to look up and there would be these stranger’s privates in my face. I couldn’t take it anymore and some people are just too happy to be naked in front of anyone. I’ll take the ratty tatty’s over a winky from a dinky any day. yuck!
She’s seen . . . the rest of you as well. If I saw one of my kid’s teachers at the gym, I’d claim I was my evil twin Jeff and run like hell . . .