Five times the fun

When the next-door neighbor stopped by this morning to drop off the baby for the nanny, she saw me coming down the stairs with a basket of laundry and said, "Oh, I'm just about to do the same thing! It just never ends, doesn't it?"

To which I replied, "Yes, and when I was single I sometimes could go 10 or more days without having to do any laundry, and then do it all in one day. I've inherited laundry for five now."

And I silently blessed the femme de ménage because she ends up doing at least 50% of it plus ironing Georges' shirts. His daughter also does her own laundry plus whatever else is in the communal laundry pile. So despite the fact that at least every other day I find myself either hanging laundry to dry (we have a dryer but never use it, and like most French households we hang things to dry) or taking down the dry stuff to fold and put away, I know it could be much worse. At least I have help.

I am beginning to understand why my younger sister sometimes looks older than I do. She's been been doing family laundry for over 20 years.