Ironing

My husband is approaching a job shift that requires a wardrobe shift. Someone in our church generously donated his old wardrobe of sweaters and buttoned, collared shirts to my husband. My husband sorted through the clothes last weekend and made note of a few laundering requirements. “This needs to be washed in cold water.” I suppose that, since my husband has put a sweater in the laundry about three times in our four years of marriage, he doesn’t realize that I wash my own sweaters frequently.

As I was laundering the new clothes, I started thinking about ironing the shirts. I remembered that the last time I wanted to iron, shortly after we moved three years ago, I couldn’t find a good place to plug in the iron. My solution: I haven’t ironed in three years. Back when ironing was an occasional event in our home, we both worked full-time. My commute was forty-five minutes each way and my husband’s was two minutes each way, so my husband did much of his own ironing.  Before I bothered to find a convenient outlet and setting up the ironing board, I figured I’d check with my husband if he even wanted his shirts ironed.

Me: Are you going to want all those shirts ironed?

Husband: Maybe. I definitely want them on hangers with the top button buttoned.

Me: Yeeees…(in a we established this policy for shirts with collars some years ago voice).

Husband: Well, you don’t iron the way I do.

Me: What do you mean by that?

Husband: I use starch.

Me:…(torn between pointing out that I can actually spray starch and iron at the same time or just agreeing that I don’t iron the way he does).