I’m really grateful for my household appliances today.
Sometimes when I’m doing laundry, I imagine having to pump water out of the ground or go get it from a well. Then I think about building a fire to boil the water in a huge cauldron, and putting the family’s filthy clothes in it.
(I think this imagery originates from the time I read/saw Germinal – everybody is coal miners and they’re sofa-king dirty ALL THE TIME. That wife and her drudgery have haunted me ever since. (Likewise absinthe addiction, and numerous other things Émile Zola chose to write about. He was one depressing dude.))
This is not the wife in question, but it is the squalor in question.Then I ponder washboards and starch and ironing and I just think… HOW? How did people accomplish such a thing as laundry back in the day??
Occasionally I imagine having to bathe in a barrel or copper pot or some other container, again with the pumping and the boiling…
Sometimes I even think about not having a fridge. *Shudder.*
And you know what? At my old house, not so very long ago, we didn’t have a dishwasher. I went through all my kids’ baby and toddler years doing the dishes by hand. And it did take forever. Sometimes there were mountains of dishes. Uphill both ways.
Thank goodness for the cloth diaper service, at least. That was an absolute godsend.
So thank you, modernity. I am deeply grateful for your inventions.
***
P.S. I’m also glad that it’s Friday the 13th, ever since I read this article and realized that OF COURSE it was actually a day of feminine empowerment and awesomeness (that was simply perverted by the patriarchy) and still can be… YES to that magic.
We should remember those old days when we are compiling about the laundry. Or that the vacuum robot doesn’t do a thorough job. Or when the glass comes out with stains from the dishwasher. I sure am glad I don’t have to do that by hand.
Haha, I didn’t even think of the vacuum robot! We have those experiences with our dishwasher too, and I agree – I’d still rather not do them by hand.