A Plea for an Invention

©2009 by Angie Ruark

Laundry piles up everywhere in my house. I really don’t know how in the world we generate the amount of laundry that we do, but it keeps appearing day by day. I am starting to consider the possibility that it is multiplying on its own somehow. One night, I thought about sneaking around to check the piles to try and catch it breeding, but I was too tired from folding clothes. Maybe that is its strategy! At this rate, I will never be able to sneak up on it and catch it growing.

I do a little every day, but it's like trying to move a mountain using a spoon. Once in a while I resort to throwing some of the dirty laundry away so I don’t have to wash it. My reasoning is that if I have been able to live the past month (or two) without that shirt, maybe I don’t really need it. It’s kind of a good strategy I think. Maybe I could take it one step further and buy inexpensive clothes every week and just throw them away when I’m done wearing them. This could revolutionize everything! Disposable clothes. Think of all the energy we would save by not using the washer and dryer. Think of the money we would save on water and detergent (not to mention time!) We could make them out of cotton. They would be biodegradable. It would boost the economy because the cotton industry would flourish. Grocery stores could sell them in the paper towel section. This would also solve my sock problem. I have already resorted to buying socks weekly so we have matching pairs once or twice a week. My youngest son claims he has never had a matching pair that he can remember (he is thirteen, so that is sad!) I just bought a pack of ten socks and as soon as we got home, my thirteen-year-old grabbed them all and wrote giant J’s on them in sharpie to claim them. I don’t blame him. Not only does he want matching pairs, but he also says he wants socks that aren’t “crispy.” Or permanently charcoal gray when they should be white.

Disposable clothes would also cut down on stress, thus they would have important health benefits. Nothing gets my heart rate pumping from stress like the question: “Honey, do I have any clean socks I can wear to work today?” Notice the word 'matching' is absent from this question. We know in our house not to even consider something like that! Also, disposable clothes would cut down on the amount of socks that disappear into the Land of Enchantment (at least that is what we call it in our house- the place where socks go after you put them in the washing machine.) Another important stress-relieving benefit of disposable clothes would be that I would never have clothes that have become too small from me working my butt on.* Also, I could enjoy shopping each week for new outfits guilt free. The more I think about this the more I see how important an invention like disposable clothes is. As a matter of fact, I can't see why no one has done this yet! Forget the light bulb or telephone! Disposable clothes will be the invention that will revolutionize the whole world, save the economy, the environment, and peoples' sanity!


*See my blogpost “I've Worked My Butt On!”