Converted

Once upon a time there was a girl. Like most girls, she was brazen and a little obnoxious and more beautiful than she imagined. You might not have liked her all the time. She was very sure. She was sure that most of the world was ordinary and boring. She was sure that traveling and seeing the world was interesting and staying close to home and getting married and having a family was not. She was sure that living in a big capitol city was sophisticated and living in the Midwest was not.

This girl and her boyfriend went to a wedding in their hometown. At their table were three other couples who had gotten married right after college. Two of the couples had small children. The other women had a whole conversation about laundry. The girl mocked inside her head. She rolled her internal eyes. She knew it. This is what happens to you if you stay put and get married and have a family. You talk about laundry. (I warned you that you might not like her all the time.)

The other women were very, very nice. They asked this girl how she did her laundry. This girl looked at them blankly. She honestly didn't know what they meant. She put her weekend jeans and t-shirts in the washing machine and turned it on. She took her working suits to the dry cleaners and paid the bill.

"But what about stains," they queried? "Don't you pre-treat? Don't you bleach."

She looked at them suspiciously. No. Bleach? No bleach. "Bleach isn't good for jeans?" she ventured.

"Don't you separate?" She cocked her head. She'd heard this word from her exasperated mother. No. No separating. Just washing.

"Don't the stains set?" they asked her. She didn't understand the problem. She didn't get many stains and if something did stain, then they became pajamas. Or work out clothes. It was the natural progression of clothes. Weekend wear became only-in-the-house-wear became pajamas. Stains on real clothes were the dry cleaner's problem. The end.

Time passed. This girl matured. She learned more tolerance. She still loved adventure, but she learned the value of all choices. She still hated laundry. She stalwartly refused to learn the rules of washing. Then one day, a little prince joined this girl's kingdom and this baby pooped orange and yellow goop on its clothes. The girl gasped. Stains. For which she was responsible. The horror. She ran to the trash and threw the clothes away.

It kept happening. All clothes could not be pitched. The stains multiplied. She bought bleach, but she still refused to separate. Fortunately, the laundry people made products for laundry illiterates like color safe bleach. A year passed. Two years. A princess. Another prince. Another. The girl was obsessed with bibs. Bibs kept the clothes fairly clean. Poopy clothes, she threw away. The stains grew and grew.

A magic fairy god-friend appeared named Emma. Emma told the girl about a magical product called Oxy.clean. She refused to listen. No. She might be home, she might be boring, she might be a mom, but she would not learn the secrets of laundry.

One day, the girl and her fairy god-friend Emma went out to breakfast with the three princes and one princess. Prince Cue wore a sweater that had been bought five years ago in Ireland when the girl was glowy and fresh and the girl's mother hoped she might have babies one day. The sweater was darling, a cable knit fisherman's sweater with a teddy bear on the front. When breakfast arrived and the girl went into her bag for her bibs, she discovered she had forgotten them. Sadness.

Prince Cue gobbled blueberries in blueberry sauce like he was preparing for the role of head oompa loompa in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The girl sighed as she surveyed the ruined sweater, stained blue and purple. The girl shook her head. Oh well, the price of forgotten bibs.

Emma took control. "Give me the sweater," she told the girl, "I will show you the power of Oxy.clean." The girl did not believe, but she gave Emma the sweater and Emma performed her magic soaking in her magical liquid. The sweater emerged Clean.

And the girl saw that it was good. She went to Cost.co. She purchased Oxy.clean. She washed Prince Cue's poopy sheets (don't ask) and Prince Nate's poopy sleepers and they came clean. She still refuses to separate, but she is considering braving the world of pre-treating.

To atone for her lifetime of laundry mocking, this girl wrote a blog post. About laundry. And Oxy.clean. She knows that brash, beautiful, twenty-something girls will mock her. They will call her boring. Housewife. Domestic. They will roll their eyes at her nearly-forty mommy self.

It's okay. She'll just smile. She was just like them once. She remembers how it felt to be brash and interesting and sure.

She knows the secret now. They are not wrong and she is not wrong. She is different from them in a way she didn't understand then and they don't understand now. She loves a two-year-old who loves blueberries.