Laundry Quandary

So, today, I feel like the conqueror.
Sort of.
There has been this mountain of laundry in my room for months. It’s all pretty much the same stuff, and it just rotates through. You know, we wear it, we wash it, and then we take it out of the dryer and put it in the baskets which have taken up permanent residence in my room. Then, when we need something we practically swim through all of the clothes trying to find the item we are looking for. Believe me on this one – the dryer can not be the only thing that eats socks! I am going to lose one of my children in “The Pile” one of these days.
I stayed up after everyone else went to bed to take care of “The Pile.” I am sure one tough cookie. It’s a dangerous job, but someone had to do it. Most of the laundry has already been washed and dried, and that’s not where the problem lies. The problem is putting the items that make up “The Pile” away. Actually folding, and hanging, and goodness, at this point I’d even take wadding up and shoving the stuff in the drawers. And don’t even start on the socks, which, up until tonight, I haven’t! Socks are the most terrible thing to have to put away. They don’t keep to the buddy system. There is always a few who are hanging out, all by themselves, with no other sock to pair up with. This is fine if you happen to have a one footed individual in your family. We, however are a complete family of two footed people and thus the need for two socks. An then, you know what really gets to me about the socks --- Ok, you know how you buy a pack of socks, say, just plain old white socks, and somehow, they don’t wear evenly. You may have a few that the elastic wears out more quickly, and others that get muddy and turn that brownish color. Those ones HAVE to go together! You can not pair a muddy sock with a fresh looking white sock. The nice white sock will make your muddy sock look worse! If you don’t believe me, just try it. The muddy socks, or the wiffly socks have to be paired together. If you pair them together their stainedness or inelasticity will not be as obvious to the casual wardrobe inspector. Now, you can say, why not just throw out the damaged, worn, stained socks? Why not indeed…. If you are asking yourself that question, then you my friend, probably don’t have children. Were I to take up that attitude towards the less than desirable socks in my children’s drawers, I should simply forget washing socks all together, and purchase new packages of socks every week.
Anyways, on to my ultimate dilemma. I have exhausted my supply of hangers, and I still have an entire basket of laundry that needs to be hung up! And to compound my problem, I know that I recently bought two new packages of hangers. And I just opened one of them tonight! I am inclined to think that “The Pile” has been somewhat slighted by the fact that I have ignored it, and is taking out it’s frustrations by multiplying while I am not looking. Ok, as tough as this is for me to admit, I think I know what the problem really is. And this, this strikes up more dread in my gut than dealing with “The Pile.” Yeah, I am not so tough now. Whenever I run out of hangers, I have to consider two possibilities; 1. An unusual number of my plastic hangers have succumbed to age and have broken or 2. I need to clean out the closets. Unfortunately, I think that my laundry quandary has more to do with reason number two than anything else.

I am going to have to clean out the closets.

And I am also going to have to go through the socks.

I think I can hear “The Pile” laughing at me.