Pumping iron…

I’ve never liked ironing. I don’t know why that is, or, come to think of it, why, if that is the case, that I ever have to do it now.

But I do. Here’s the thing you see, apparently despite all the great strides we’ve made in society these days like not being able to call the postman the postman any more in case we’re perceived to be sexist or something, we still can’t go outside with wrinkly trousers. Hence the ironing.

By the way I still call the postman, the postman, although usually I just call him Dan.

Unless of course the postman happens to be a woman. Then I’d call her Debbie or Mary or whatever her name is.

Oh yeah, she'd be a postwoman too of course.

But all that is an aside to this conundrum of ironing.

I’m not sure why I dislike ironing so much, I think that perhaps secretly I’m always afraid that the phone might ring.

If you need a second to think about that, take a pause now - but as a hint remember the old joke about the guy who burned his ear listening to the match.

So moving swiftly along. Ironing then. I mean folks, seriously is there any logic to it at all?

When I was growing up my mother used to spend hours upon hours on her feet ironing shirts and trousers and, well everything really.

And I’m pretty sure than most other mothers around did the same. There were days you could smell the starch in the air from half a mile away.

Those were usually after good drying days, something I think will be making a return to many parts now.

For ten years or so I don’t think anybody knew what a good drying day was. Every day was a good drying day because, well everything was thrown in the dryer and sure what the hell, it only cost a few pence.

And sure what odds if it shrunk the jumper into something you’d have to put on a teddy bear, sure wasn’t the jumper only ten euro and couldn’t we drive down and buy two more tomorrow.

Fancy dancy garden designers were rooting up clothes lines like they were the biggest weeds they’d ever seen in anybody’s garden and sure nobody seemed to mind at all.

Not like when I was wee and the line used to be packed with trousers and sheets and socks and nearly every week a full football rig – whenever there was a good drying day.

There was a kind logic to it all really when you think of it. Wash the clothes on the day you know they could be dried. But the ironing afterwards thing always kinda baffled me.

It was grand if you were ironing something to put on right away, but I could never see the logic in ironing something that was going to be folded and put away in a cupboard.

I mean, as soon as you folded it you were going to ensure that it would need ironed again. It didn’t tally in with all the carefully thought out strategy of washing and drying.

In fact there was a time when I was younger and used to watch things like the futuristic ‘Space 1999’ that I thought it would be kinda cool in the future because all the clothes would be those jump suity things that I was pretty sure were made from stuff you couldn’t iron. (Well you could but they would stick to the iron, trust me on this I know!)

Instead we’ve gone way past 1999 and people are still nipping their fingers on crotchety old ironing boards and standing around and ironing clothes that they then fold and put into a cupboard.

But always fearful of that phone ringing, my ironing skills are only ever now used on something that will be imminently worn.

It’s not a policy that has drawn widespread approval.

“If you do that the clean laundry pile just increases,” I was told.

To which I replied – ‘Yep, and in creases is the way it’ll stay too!”