I Can’t Reconcile Laundry with the Mass Extinction of Humankind
Why are we all carrying on like it’s business as usual?
There are days I wake up with purpose. Sunday, for instance, is Laundry Day. The success or failure of the weekend hinges on whether or not my family is able to transform the massive heaps of clean clothing tumbling out of laundry baskets into neatly folded stacks, and subsequently tuck those stacks into the appropriate drawers.
If it doesn’t happen, as it sometimes doesn’t, I reluctantly accept defeat. I resign myself to a week of pawing through laundry baskets in the semi-darkness of early morning to locate a matching sock or my son’s favorite ninja sweatshirt.
If it does happen, my husband and I high-five each other after the kids go to bed. We clink our glasses, each containing our adult beverage of choice. We are full of pride and perhaps a touch of hubris.
We did it. We accomplished Laundry. We are invincible.
Then I remember that in the next 30 years or so, the world might end. Not the world, per se, but the world as we know it. A world with laughter and laundry. A world with trees and food and oxygen. A world that can support human life.
