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Friday, January 11, 2008Housewife HieroglyphsI just washed my daughter's new shirt. It's not too confusing, after years of laundry experience, to figure out which fabrics and colors require which temperatures and cycles. Laundry, in a sense, is my life, and I swear I could almost do it blindfolded. Still, prudence sometimes calls me to check the care label on a new garment, just to be sure. So I decided to do a quick check on the new shirt. (Mind you, this was after I'd already washed it and was getting ready to lob it into the dryer.) I searched for the tag, but couldn't find it. Ah. There it was. So tiny that it had curled up on itself, bashful of its contents. I uncurled the tag, which was really not a tag so much as it was a narrow-as-a-toothpick shred of fabric. I squinted at what I expected to be tiny words -- you know, things like "Machine wash cold, like colors," or "Tumble dry low." Nope. There were no words on the tag. There were pictures. Four pictures in a tidy little row: A cup with waves across the top, an equilateral triangle bedecked with diagonal lines, a square with a "minus" sign in the middle, and an iron sporting a single dot. And I'm supposed to know what this means? Obviously it has something to do with water temperature, cycle, dryer instructions, and ironing. The iron is the clearest icon of the bunch, but I fail to see the significance of the dot in the center of it. Or is it a period? In which case, does this mean, "Do not iron. Period." Or perhaps, "Iron periodically."? The glass-of-water must refer to the temperature, but goodness knows how I'm supposed to interpret the picture. It's got a dot in the middle, too, so I guess the water temperature is supposed to match the iron temperature. In which case I suppose a few pictures would take up far less room than, "Set washing machine and iron to same temperature prior to laundering this garment." The triangle has me especially baffled. I'm beginning to suspect that there is some sort of housewife code that everyone is in on except me. "Have you done your -- you know -- triangle load today?" Seriously. What does a triangle have to do with laundry? I don't see anything particularly "delicate" or "normal" or "permanent press" about a triangle. Then there's the negative square. (This is sounding more like Algebra than housework.) Assuming that the "minus" sign means "don't do it," this might actually mean "no dryer." Which is unfortunate, since I've already thrown the shirt into the dryer. So by the time I've finished deciphering a hieroglyphic laundry tag, I'm wondering how I'm supposed to have the time and energy to actually complete the laundry. I should have been more careful when I bought the shirt. It was a brand new store, especially for trendy teeny-boppers (not to imply that my daughter is a trendy teeny-bopper). Considering the declining literacy rate in the United States, I shouldn't be surprised that the laundry tag doesn't contain any words. That's assuming that most "teeny-boppers" do their own laundry in the first place. That, to me, is a more ludicrous assumption than the one that led the shirt manufacturer to supply the laundering public with word-free washing instructions. And who dreamed that all those glorious hieroglyphics on the walls of the ancient tombs of Egypt were nothing more than laundry instructions. Kind of changes your mind about Tut and Company. "How to wash your mummy." Right. Time to immerse myself in something more cerebral and less demeaning. And if anyone can clue me in on the translation of the Housewife Hieroglyphs, feel free. Labels: life |
About Me
I am: Mother to five stunningly individualistic children... Writer of young adult fantasy... Passionate advocate for Women At Home... Madly in love with my husband... In need of Organic Gourmet Chocolate on a regular basis. I've got a Paypal account if you'd like to contribute to the cause....
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4of my readers are feeling chatty:
http://www.textileaffairs.com/lguide.htm
This should help you out!!! I can never figure those things out.
jen
jenlud on hah
Well, now you know how I feel about emoticons before they render as pictures.
Jill, that was the most hilarious blog post! Thanks for the giggle and smile today.
Connie
Oh, my gosh. I don't have a clue what any of the pictures mean either! Hilarious!
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