Oh Hi! I’ve been deeply neglecting my blog in order not to neglect my family and job. But what’s the point in having a deeply neglected blog if you can’t post the occasional rant? This post is inspired by a real life crazy speech that I showered down upon my class like hot lava.
You all have a system for doing laundry. Most of your systems are better than mine, but we can at least all agree that there is a place you put dirty laundry (a hamper) and that laundry is meant to be done in loads.
If your child peeled a single dirty sock off of his foot, put it in your face and said, “Wash this for me, right now.” You would be unlikely to accommodate him. If he further insisted that it is YOUR JOB to wash it, he might get knocked into next week. Dirty socks go into the hamper with other dirty clothes to be washed on laundry days. That sock should be washed with other socks and towels and such.
Parents, when your student turns in late work or doesn’t follow procedures and put it in the right place, they are shoving that single dirty sock in my face and telling me to wash it. Most of your kids are not chronic offenders and I thank you for that, but enough of them are that I am being expected to do a load of clothes that includes mismatched socks, someone’s pillow case, a dry clean only suit coat, shrinkable sweaters and questionable swatches of fabric in need of repair (nameless or improperly headed papers.)
Students, what would your parents do if you threw your favorite t-shirt in the compost heap rather than the hamper, then pouted in a huff that they didn’t clean it for you or won’t clean it right now? No it really isn’t just so easy to wash your recital dress (Persuasive Essay that is two months late) while I am washing all the bedsheets (Westward Expansion maps for Social Studies.)
So next time anybody wants to turn in a lengthy assignment I have asked for every day all 9 weeks at 8am, when averages must be finalized in the computer at 8:30, consider how it would work out for you if you did something like that to your mom and told her it’s her job. My job includes laundry, but is not exclusively laundry. There are a lot of other things to be done. Then consider that while laundry is a never ending process and eventually enough socks will be dirty to wash a new load, grading periods do come to an end.
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