Funny Guy Friday… A little less conversation… A little more laundry please…

     Funny Guy Friday is written each week by my husband Mark. So… I married a funny guy...
     Over the course of our nearly twenty-year marriage, Cheryl and I have had two very  contentious issues that we have struggled to resolve. The first was my coaching baseball five days a week at a time when we had two kids at home who were both too young to play. She would grumble about being left alone five nights a week to raise two kids under the age of five without my being around. Two kids, big deal! I have thirteen kids to worry  about five nights a week and four of them can't hit their way out of a paper bag and you don't see me begging for your help!  
     Surprisingly, my argument fell on deaf ears. After a few years, I stopped coaching until our kids started playing. Now that she has a son on the team, she tells me…can't you do something with those kids, you are out at a field five nights a week and you still have four kids that can't hit their way out of a paper bag! Perhaps, you should consider practicing the other two nights of the week! Good riddance! Oh yeah, tell Matthew to take some water. 
     The other issue has proven harder to resolve. The issue that still haunts us to this very day is managing the household laundry. For as long as I can remember, I have lobbied for the very simple strategy of doing a load of laundry a day. This way, it never gets to be too much of a chore. As an added bonus, I would have a clean t-shirt to wear every day. Cheryl prefers the throw it in the laundry room until it piles up so high that you can change the light bulb without using a ladder approach. On a side note, she has no problem with me wearing one of those small t-shirts every once in a while. You know the ones that I can't stand because they are way too tight.
      Typically, I cave on almost every difference of opinion that we have but I refuse to yield on this one. I don't get it. Laundry can only become a problem when you let it get so out of control that it becomes a daunting task. And frankly, I cannot imagine a simpler chore. You throw it in and you walk away----it is something that you do while you are doing something else. The days of taking the clothes to the river and beating them on a rock are over. We have an extra large capacity front loader, for goodness sakes.
     However, last weekend was different. I was so happy to see the laundry getting done at a record rate. My girl was ripping through it like nobody's business. One load would come out, another load would go in, and the load that came out would immediately get folded. This is an important step because there have been many of occasions when the laundry is washed but never folded. It sits in a "clean clothes" hamper for a few days until someone needs something from the bottom of the hamper and dumps the clean, unfolded clothes on the floor. After a day or two of co-mingling with any dirty clothes that may happen to be on the floor, we have no idea what is clean and what is dirty. It is madness.
     Anyway, back to last weekend… After the folding, my girl then had her little minions run the clothes up the steps to be delivered to the appropriate location. Our kids were like little ants doing the Queen's bidding.
     As I watched this operation, I could not help but be reminded of my days growing up in my parents' home. My mom never let the laundry get out of hand. In fact there were times when I had a game in the morning and another in the afternoon and dear ol' mom would wash my uni during the break. In college, I had a magic laundry bag that was full of dirty clothes when I came home for the weekend, and full of clean, folded clothes when I left to go back. I loved that bag! I miss that bag!
     So, I started to think, Wouldn't it be great if my mom lived with us all the time? Oh, did I forget to mention that the "my girl" that I referred to, who was tearing through our laundry, was my mom. Yeah, she stayed with us last weekend, and she was the one making short work of our laundry. I have not conducted any official experiment or anything, but I swear that the washing machine and the dryer go faster when my mom is at our house. She goes at the laundry like a windmill in a tornado.
     Now don't get the wrong idea and think that my mom is some overbearing mother-in-law that sticks her nose in her son's dirty laundry. (That's kind of a gross if you think about it!) No, nothing could be further from the truth. It is as if she enjoys doing the laundry and who are we to get in her way.
     The fact is that I am very fortunate to have a wife and a mother that get along great. Two beautiful people with two very different personalities. Cheryl is the most laid back person in the world and worries about very little. My mother worries about everything, including my laundry.
     Cheryl is content to leave things for the next day, or the day after, or the day after that. My mother has to get everything done right away, including my laundry.
     Cheryl is content in her solitude, with quiet moments, sitting still. My mom wants to be around people------and do their laundry.
     Cheryl likes being around me and tolerates me. My mother loves to be around me….. and thoroughly enjoys doing my laundry. If I say that I am hungry, Cheryl will tell me to get a piece of fruit or drink a glass of water. My mom responds with the seven greatest words ever uttered, Can I make you something to eat? 
     In my mind I say, HECK YEAH, YOU CAN MAKE ME SOMETHING TO EAT! But I try to play it cool, and what comes out of my mouth is, No Mom, I don't want to put you out, but if you are interested, we have some tomato sauce and paste in the pantry and some ground beef, you know, if you want to take a break from folding, and make some meatballs. This gets her every time. (I guess my son Noah comes by his subtle hints honestly.)     
      When Cheryl and I have a discussion, she tends to jump in in the middle of my thoughts and finish my sentences for me. A friend has described this as the middle of my sentence interrupting the beginning of hers. 
     My mother, on the other hand, never interrupts me. Of course, sometimes I'm not sure she can hear me----But she never interrupts me.
      I suppose that I am very lucky to have been blessed with two incredible women in my life. I know that both love me unconditionally, both are awesome mothers, and both are women of faith and great examples for their daughters, nieces and, in my mom's case, grand daughters. Sometimes I feel that I should just go and shout out to anyone that will listen, how much I love and respect these women.
     The problem is, and I hate to say this, I am kind of embarrassed to get up in front of a bunch of people----I have no clean clothes to wear.