#161-WHERE IS "IRON" MAN WHEN I NEED HIM?

Hey, lady, I'm a super-
hero!  I DON'T DO
HOUSEWORK!

It is 11:34 PM on Saturday the 19th of March and I am throwing in the towel, (or as you will soon see, throwing out the iron).  I'll begin with last Saturday which was my father's 100th birthday reception.  (We had to cancel it twice in February because of snow and finally it was a go in the 12th).  However, difficult it was to gather all of his stuff to display on tables, it has been twice as difficult to put it all back in their assigned places.

Therefore, I was supposed to spend most of this week returning pictures to albums, to walls and to book shelves.  I needed to return memorabilia to boxes, quilts to the closets, and birthday cards to his table side.   However, Tuesday, my granddaughter had to deliver her car to the Air Force pick up site in St Louis so it could be delivered to her next station.  She needed me to follower her to St. Louis (6 hours away) and bring her back (another 6 hours).   So that shot the heck out of Tuesday.  It ended up messing up Wednesday and Thursday also, because I was so exhausted from the drive all the way to St. Louis IN A SNOW STORM that I needed the two days to recuperate.

Back to the choirs revolving around the aftermath of the reception.  Part of the party was the loan of 8 fairly large, round, white, cotton, table cloths and 6 blue rayon table drapes.  The loan came with written instructions on how to wash and IRON the table cloths.

Now, I don't iron!   The only ironing I have ever done is to... ... well, it has been so long I don't even remember the last thing I ironed.  So, I washed and dried them, a few at a time, and yanked them out of the dryer piping hot hoping that I would not have to iron them.  Nope, they had that crinkly look that SHOUTED this lazy woman DID NOT IRON ME!

Like most people who do not know how to do something (or absolutely hate doing something) I put the ironing off until today.  I was not being too successful.   First of all I had to find the iron (and that was no easy task).  Then I discovered that it wouldn't steam so I had to find a squirt bottle so I could spray the table cloth.  Next, I discovered that a large ROUND tablecloth was difficult to iron on the ironing board.  I also discovered that my kitchen floor was a little dirty and needed to be cleaned before I could iron, lest the tablecloth (laying partly on the floor) pick up some dirt and require being washed again (Heaven forbid!).

The first one was a disaster.  It wrinkled as fast as I ironed it.   I then experimented by folding the darned thing in half and ironing one side of the half, and then flipped it over to iron the other half and discovered the beautiful IRONED in wrinkles.  It took me 30 minutes to complete this one.

That is when Toby decided that I wasn't paying enough attention to him and grabbed the second one, took off, and ran merrily around the front room dragging it behind him.  He was having a wonderful time (while I was trying to remember where I kept my gun, which in all actuality I have used more often than my iron.....although not lately).

I finally rescued table cloth #2, finished it in 25 minutes (personal best so far) and went back to work.  That is when I discovered that the iron was not doing it's job.  Back and forth, back and forth....nothing...Come to find out, Toby had disconnected the cord when he ran through the room to see where the cat was going.

Setting the iron on the end of the ironing board to reheat I went to find Toby a diversion.  I chose his balloon.  You see, Toby loves helium balloons.  He doesn't pop them like most dogs, he just carries them around by their string.  It is the cutest thing I have ever seen...UNTIL TODAY!  I will bet you don't see where this is going, but hang on...  In comes Toby with his balloon in tow.  He pulls it directly into the iron and the darn thing instantly melts upon contact, snags on the iron and continues to disintegrate.  I yell...... Toby yanks........ and the whole thing goes to the floor.

I shoved Toby out of the way of the hot iron, yank it up by the chord (because it it starting to melt the linoleum on the floor).  Toby thinks its a game and tries to go after the iron.  I dance around screaming,  "NO TOBY, NO TOBY!"  and while yanking the plug from the wall I dance the gooey iron over to the sink and toss it in.

Was the sink empty?...No...Were my dishes done?...NO...but the iron is....... and, mannnnnnn, so am I!
kt 3/2011