Hang the clothes

Ok, I admit it. I have a problem. I hang the clothes out and I hang them out maniacally.That’s right. In my never-ending quest to unburden the power utility of its profits, I’ve developed a rather serious habit of hanging out the laundry.

I cannot tell you how crazy it makes me to see my clothesline empty on a sunny, breezy day. You may as well set fire to money, as far as I’m concerned.

To me, the clothes line is a “free dryer.” When I wake up to a sunny, slightly windy day, it’s like finding a twenty-dollar bill on the sidewalk, only better because I know that the money does not belong to some poor slob who doesn’t have another cent to his name.

No, that money is coming straight out of the profits of the power utility and going straight into my pocket.

Using the “free dryer” gives me a cheap thrill. And that cheap thrill turns to joy when I saunter over to the power meter to see how slowly the disk is spinning as my clothes flap merrily on the line.

“Well, my precious,” I say to that meter, in my best Wicked-Witch-of-the-West voice. “I’m afraid you’re not going to eat my money today. And if it’s sunny tomorrow, you’ll be going hungry again. He-he-he.”

Those who are close to me will tell you that hanging out the clothes has long ceased to be habit. It’s an addiction. He Who Can’t be Named says it borders on the obsessive and the compulsive.

But since when is checking the five-day weather forecast and then organizing your weekly schedule around good drying days obsessive compulsive behaviour? It just makes sense.

I mean, why would you hand over your hard-earned money to the power utility when you can use the free dryer and keep the money for other things like bourbon, for example?

Between you and me, I think He Who Can’t is just saying these things because he’s recently been caught out using the other dryer, the one I call the kilowatt hour glutton.

Yes, sometimes at night he sneaks around the laundry room putting the wash in the dryer. Then he tries to hide the evidence. But I always know. I can smell it on the clothes.

And don’t go accusing me of having too much time on my hands either. I can assure you that I am as busy as the next laundry-doer. And because of this, other things suffer. When choices have to be made, the clothes line usually wins out.

Take the breakfast dishes for example. Sometimes they don’t get tidied up because I have to hang out the clothes. You can always clean up later, but you can’t manufacture sunshine and light wind.

If the forecast is promising, it isn’t unusual to find me hanging a laundry in the pitch black at 11 pm to get the jump on the morning sunshine. And if the weather is not fine, the laundry will just have to wait.

On some sunny days, I’ve actually contemplated zooming home at lunchtime to take the dry clothes off the line and put another load on. But this creates a conflict with my other unending quest which is depriving the oil companies of their profits. With the price of gas these days, you have to find the balance.

True, there are times when I’m caught out by my mean-spirited attitude towards the power utility. Believe me when I tell you that it hurts to arrive home to a clothes line sagging with drenched clothes.

But such is the risk of the “free dryer.” Most of the time you win, and sometimes you lose. You can always wring the clothes out by hand and hang them in the basement to dry.

And if you’re depriving the power utility of some small modicum of profits, you’re a winner in my books, wet clothes or dry.