Lamentation in the Laundry

Speaking of not being minimalist, as I was yesterday (speaking of, I mean), today I’m going to face the Great Clothes Change Over of 2016. That is, I’m going to start to face it, by first walking down into Sheol and looking around.

How much do I loath Sheol?

It’s hard for me to quantify it. It’s always been my least favorite place in the world. But I have, a couple of times, conquered my loathing and gone down there and imposed actual order, like Rowan Atkinson, assigning people their places in hell. I go down. I square my shoulders. I make some good jokes. I do all the laundry that has ever needed to be done. And then, because I am frail as dust, I cede the whole thing to another person, like Matt, or Elphine, or, more lately, Romulus and Gladys.

“Go down and change over,” I say to Romulus. And to Gladys, “Go fold.” And they go down, and it turns out to be the worst thing ever. No one ever has any clothes again because who knows what they do with them.

I should know. But that would mean going down there, into the dark sadness. Why, oh why, I always ask myself, would anyone arrange to have the laundry in the basement? Wearing clean clothes is a necessary element of an ordered life. If you don’t put on something decent and clean, you can’t properly do your job or think comfortably of yourself. Getting children to put on clean clothes is hard work. They would rather not. They prefer to continue wearing what they were wearing before. And if it is covered in chocolate, so much the better. Shouting at them to Put Something Reasonable On is only half of the struggle. The other half is getting the clothes clean. And yet some people, who organize the building of houses, thought it would be a good idea to make everything even harder by putting the laundry in the basement. I trust these people are even this moment in Sheol themselves, folding laundry and weeping over their wickedness.

Putting the laundry in Sheol is akin to thinking the Kmart complex on Front Street is fine, and what’s the big deal. Sure, the pot holes are so great that you need a Land Rover to navigate them in the rain, and no, you don’t ever need to go over there when it’s not raining. And sure, looking at the vast, blighted, empty, wasteland of storefronts makes a person want to die. But whatevs. It’s Bing, ya know. Just deal. When I have to drive around that area of Front Street, and be grateful that I’m driving and not trudging along to the bus stop, because gratitude is a required element of being here, I always want my soul to die. Is there any suffering like my suffering, I murmur, having to look at this hideousness?

Of course the answer is no. There all the people who survived all the terrorism of last week and the weekend, whose lives and families will never be the same. Look, look, I know that I’m not really suffering here. But it feels like I am. And really, isn’t that all that matters?

Don’t answer that either.

So. Sheol. Because of duty and honor. Because of needing to do that which will make everybody else’s lives better. Because of needing to die to myself anyway, even in Easter Season. Because this mortal life is but a whisper and a breath. A breath that lasts what seems a freakishly long time, and a whisper that sounds more like screaming, but still, this too shall soon be over.

I hope you have a lovely day, as I shall not be having a lovely day.