I finally tackled my pile of ironing. 7 pants, 5 shirts, 4 skirts, 2 dresses, and 1 jacket later, I vow to one day either A) be able to afford dry cleaning for every thing that could possibly require anything beyond the ‘wrinkle release’ setting on the dryer or B) move to a nudist colony. Wrinkles at a nudist colony are totally acceptable and no one does a thing about them. I respect that.

The experience did give me one piece of perspective: I understand the 1950’s just a bit more. I completely see why women wore skirts and dresses all the time — those are the ones that are a walk in the park to iron. If I were going to spend the whole day at home getting the laundry done, you can be sure that I wouldn’t purposefully be adding more pants to crease and collars to crisp. Good thinking, June.

That said, the experience also made me reflect upon how much I will forever detest the process of ironing. I took me almost an hour and a half to get it all done (if you can’t tell, it’s not really a skill I’ve honed…it takes me a while…). During that time, I compiled a list of things that I would find preferable to those 90 minutes of life-sucking dread.

• Listen to an iPod filled only with that creepy clown/carnival music for an entire workout.
• Swear off Kleenex for an entire day during allergy season.
• Watch Cartoon Network for a full afternoon (or until I start bleeding from the eyes, whichever comes first).
• Eat only burnt toast sans any kind of spread for a week’s worth of breakfasts.
• Take I-225 during rush hour without complaint for two weeks.
• Cut my finger nails below the quick.

There were a few others I thought of, such as “I would rather die that try to freaking crease one more pair of pants,” but that would be an exaggeration… wouldn’t want to tarnish my list by adding hyperboles.

I hate ironing.