The last time I touched an Iron was 1969. It was a long, hot summer, Chicago was in a heat wave with killer high humidity. I was pregnant, overdue, miserably uncomfortable. On this wretched day, I dragged the laundry out to the laundromat, and brought home all 47 of Larry Westermeier's work shirts, damp, to iron them.

I put away the laundry, dragged out the ironing board with it's shiny silver "nonstick" cover. We had a break from the heat, living in a basement apartment. I spent the afternoon Ironing shirts, the sweat dripping from my face to between my breasts. On I went, Ironing shirt after shirt, back, front, sleeves, cuffs, collars. Light spray starch on everything, a bit more on the collars. Moving almost automatically until all of them were done and hanging from a pipe in the living room, nice and neat.

I then stretched out on the cot Larry let me use, so he and Freda could use my bed. It was complicated. I was reading my book, Barbara Tuchman's "The Proud Tower," when Larry came home, he looked at me, and said, "You sat here all day doing nothing, you useless fat pig." Then he grabbed a quick shower, smoked some dope, and went out looking for action.

I sat there in stunned silence after he left. For maybe five minutes. then I got up, got my water spray bottle and the laundry bag, and in the cool of the evening, sprayed all his shirts, wadded them back up, shoved them back into the laundry bag, and stuffed it into the closet in my (then his) bedroom. I went back to my book, and didn't give it another thought.

The next morning, he came out and said "Honey, I need a shirt for work." I replied, from my cot in the living room, "Oh, they are all stashed in a bag, in the closer, waiting to be ironed. I don't feel good. Have Freda iron one for you." And rolled over and went back to sleep. Freda, on being awakened to iron his shirt, bitched a fit and fell over it. She grabbed her things and left.

Again came "Honey, I need a shirt for work." I told him the iron was in the oven, cooling from the day before, and the ironing board was in the hall closet. A bit later he came out and said "They all smell funny." I told him to put on a tee shirt and buy a shirt on the way to work. He said "I need that money for dope. I responded: "I don't feel so good. I think I'm gonna throw up." I sat up and reached for my puke bucket, (this was not an easy pregnancy) and out the door he went. Yea verily, I have never since put hand to iron. I have known people who do, but I am not one of them.

Barbara Tuchman's book led to other interesting books, the basics of early feminism. That was my "click" moment. The next night, I slept in my bed, and told Larry he and Tara, who had replaced Freda,"could certainly use the cot, goodnight."

Comments:

Unfortunately there are still things I must iron, like my uniforms shirts, but I do it as little as possible.

With a nod and courtesies to AJ, I notice the responses about the iron story came from women. Men sometimes don't get it about how women's work is never done. I'd like a wife too, you know, but the government won't have it!

What's an iron?