Any Old Irons?

Ah the iron. That weighty clothes smoothing object. Which I do not use. I really don't. I was a proper scruffy student and then in the following years I had jobs with children and all the mess that would suggest. That led to buying simple, soft fabric clothes that are as wash and wear (and tumbledry) as you can get. The job is gone yet the clothes remain. And also the inner scruffy student that says "ach body heat will makes the creases drop out"

I tell you all this to underline my lack of ironing interest. It does make life easier. Particularly in a hoarded house. Clothes don't do well in a hoarded house. They get lost, crumpled, caught on things and are a pain to drag in any amount through hamster runs to wash and dry. I am willing to do that for me. And for Major Dragon. It is one of the last bastions of personhood? Pride? Against a hoard. One that Major Dragon might lose if she were on her own. Well, I don't think she would lose entirely since she holds down a job and is seen in public so there is a point where she will decide she needs clean clothes. But there was a time in the last 5 or so years where I decided I was taking over the laundry since she would keep putting it off then would have to go to work in a dirty blouse and a cloud of febreeze on a Monday morning. There are many things I let slide in the Secret Hoard for the sake of my sanity. Major Dragon leaving the house without a fresh blouse and clean underwear is not one of them. Even if I do spend a whole week yelling up the stairs for her to gather the dirty laundry.

I do not iron though. There she is on her own. A lack of ironing is also easier in a hoarded house. You may have had a "damn, where will I put up the ironing board" moment. But only hoarders and possibly people living in London bedsits wonder where they can put up an ironing board and be able to stand next to it. Without zebra striping their midriff.

This, interestingly enough, is where Major Dragon will not give way. She has to have ironed clothes. (she has recently destroyed a crinkle fabric blouse by continually insisting on ironing it despite my protests) I am not actually sure how many irons she owns. I can see two from where I am sitting. I am willing to bet there is at least another two in here. Even after I gave one away without MD noticing and I managed to throw away a broken one she had initially refused to part with on account of hating the new one. She didn't use the old one but getting rid of it would have ranked the new inferior iron as acceptable. I think she didn't want it to get delusions of adequacy. The new one was only a temporary measure anyway since the new very expensive iron (the one from the side quest over here. Remember?) still hasn't been found. We thought we had found it once. But it turned out to be a steam cleaner that she didn't remember buying. And we don't know if she bought it thinking it was the iron or they sent the wrong thing because she never opened the box as she didn't want it "spoiled". Or if the steamer is an entirely separate item and there is still a mystery iron living as a soldier of fortune travelling the Hoard and fighting for domestic appliance rights.

Then the ironing board broke. And left in the Great Rubbish Pick Up of 2011.

Just before the festive holidays and an overdose of shopping channels for a happy Major Dragon.

Yes, she bought a new huge and expensive iron. And a jumbo ironing board. Which doesn't fit in the space left by the previous not jumbo one. So are still in their boxes and left languishing behind the front door catching the elbows and hips of anyone passing by, desperately begging for human attention. While Major Dragon irons with Unacceptable Iron on her bed (the third of it not covered by boxes).

This is becoming the plot of a bizarre French film in my mind. With unrequited love and demented suffering. Don't let me get started on the Tale of Tin Openers. It would probably go all Lars Von Trier and I am not sure any of us would recover.