Everyday Canvas

Laundry

Prompt: Laundry:
What do you think about doing laundry in general? Did you have any unusual experiences with it? And what do you think the idiom "airing one's dirty laundry" came from?

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I really don't think much about laundry. It has to be done and I just do it.

Of the various methods of doing laundry, including hand-washing, machine-washing, and dry-cleaning, my favorite is the easiest: machine-washing. Anyone knows using a washing machine and laundry detergent and sorting the clothes so the colors don't mess up the whites and taking care of the delicate fabrics to avoid damaging them.

After the machine washing, using the dryer is my favorite method, but I do remember the wet clothes hung on the ropes that stretched from poles or from trees, in the home that I grew up in.

I never had any unusual experiences or mishaps with doing the laundry, but talking about drying laundry outdoors, my mother's maid did. When she was hanging the clothes on the line, a big black crow swept in and flew away with one of the items, an underwear to be exact. I don't know what that bird thought it would do with it, but that gave the whole family something to laugh about for a long time.

As to "airing one's dirty laundry", it means telling scandalous or unflattering stories about yourself and revealing things from your private life. About its origins, an internet search gave me this information:
"First used in English in 1867, this idiom derived from an old French proverb, Il fault laver son linge sale en famille, meaning “One should wash one's dirty laundry at home.” Napoleon used this proverb when he returned from his exile in Elba in 1815."


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