The alley to my oop

Let me preface the following discourse by saying that I love Husband, unconditionally, in spite of his dirty socks.

Our hamper is an emblem of our marriage. Literally. When Husband and I got married, what did my parents get us? A hamper. Okay, not only a hamper…they also gave us a Ford truck, dinner in a fancy restaurant, and a very nice party, but clearly the sentimental gift of the occasion was the hamper. A brown wicker hinge-top hamper.

I can hear the questions already. A hamper? Just what about a hamper is sentimental? Isn’t this rather domestic? Where is the romance in such a gift?

Please! Stop with your inquisition and give me a chance to explain!

See, when Mom and Dad got married, my mom’s parents gave them a hamper. A white wicker hinge-top hamper. I feel relatively sure that the hamper was given simply to help out a young couple trying to scrape together a household on a limited income and not with any sort of hidden agenda on communicating the significance of the marital union. Nevertheless, since my parents are still using the same hamper 46 years later (KUDOS!), and since the grandparents who gifted the hamper have been married 70 years (KUDOS! KUDOS!), one must consider the power of the hamper as wedding blessing.

Think about it. What better symbol for the nuptial intersection of intimacy and devotion than the hamper? “And Husband shall hand over his London and France to Wife without fear of judgment and Wife shall wash Husband’s London and France without fear of boy germs.” It’s poetic. Almost Biblical in its sheer duality of good and evil.

And so, taking a not-so-subtle cue from my parents and from my parents’ parents before them, I have whole-heartedly embraced laundry detail. Except for one small issue that I even hesitate to mention.

Sometimes, just sometimes, Husband misses the hamper. And by “miss,” I mean, deliberately neglects the completely insignificant effort that is lifting the hinged lid of the blessed marital hamper and inserting the dirty laundry within. Because, come on, who are we kidding! Husband has the hand-eye coordination of an octopus juggling 32 objects and the self-professed reflexes of a one-eyed cat. So you tell me how the dirty knickers come to sit just inches from the base of the hamper, or how the jeans come to be strewn haphazardly across its cover?

Since it is such a small effort for me to pick up misplaced London and haphazardly-strewn France, I cannot even tell you why Husband’s flirtation with the outer boundaries of the hamper bugs me. Except precisely that. If the effort is so trifle, why doesn’t Husband do it himself? I don’t think I’m annoyed by the infraction, so much as infinitely intrigued at its sheer audacity.

So at this point in my post, I’m sure you’ve become concerned, why is Wife airing her dirty laundry here? Shouldn’t she be talking to Husband about this? Not to worry. We’ve talked through the issue. We’ve even made advances. More or less.

I feel embarrassed to admit that my confrontation of the issue began with a passive-aggressive strategy. And boy, did that backfire. I simply decided to let the laundry pile up in its repository outside and around the hamper. Once the piles of laundry had gotten so deep that Husband started asking questions—albeit the precise question showed itself to be completely oblivious to the war being waged, something to the effect of, “I threw my khakis over here, although I’m not quite sure how you’ve got these piles organized….”—I informed Husband that I would no longer be doing laundry unless if it made it into the hamper. So what did Husband do? Duh. Right then and there he picked up what was a week’s worth of laundry and stuffed it into the hamper. Well played.

Since my first lesson in hamper management didn’t come to bear on anyone but me, I decided that my second approach needed to be more direct. So at the next opportunity—and I use the word opportunity in its loosest sense—I called Husband out on his contempt of the conjugal hamper.

And let the record show that Husband made the following statement in his defense: “Sweetie, we’re a team. By putting my laundry just outside of the hamper, I’m setting you up for the slam dunk. Like an alley-oop.”

Husband is an accomplished poker player, but I have to say that this tour-de-force was one of his strongest hands ever played. Because suddenly picking up dirty laundry brings a smile to my lips. Touché, dear Sir.

Let me conclude this discourse by reiterating that I love Husband, unconditionally, because of his dirty socks.