In which our protagonist learns to iron a shirt

Washing & Ironing: How To Iron A Shirt

This is a video I watched just recently, after a life time of bribing other people to iron my shirts for me.  It started in student Congress, circa age 15.  Before that I’d gotten my grandmother or mother to iron them, though the times I needed an ironed shirt were few & far between.  Since then I’ve bribed roomates, travelmates, and girlfriends into ironing my shirts in a futile attempt to avoid gaining this life skill.  Make no mistake about it, it’s not that I’m opposed to knowing, or think that ironing is women’s work.  Come hang at my house for a few weeks, and you’ll quickly see that dishes & laundry are 95% my chores.

But for some reason I just never wanted to learn to iron.  I think it’s because once I knew how to iron, I would feel a responsibility to only wear ironed clothing.  After all, as a classic OCD perfectionist, my permenent desire is for all things to be in their optimal state.  An unironed shirt is, by definition, in a sub optimal state relative to how I would like it to be.  I’m going to avoid this problem by laying down the law now:  there will be no ironing of anything besides my best t-rhits, dress shirts, flags, pants, iron-on-patches, and table clothes.  Everything else is out.

Tomorrow I’ve got a marathon ironing session scheduled in which our protagonist (me) irons every dress shirt and pair of dress pants in his closet.  Updates to follow…