…and any other person in the world who does their laundry by hand - which I’m sure is far more than those who have a washing machine.
For those of you who’ve never washed by hand, let me explain it to you. I had a bucket of water that I put some powdered detergent in. I dropped in a couple of white shirts first that were really dirty, so that they could soak while I washed the rest (the water ended up so dirty by the end, that I think I dirtied those shirts more than they were in the beginning = /) Then I put the first garment, and used bar soap to scrub the armpits, collar, and any stains. Then it was dunk and scrub another part, dunk and scrub, dunk and scrub, until every surface of the shirt had been scrubbed (whatever you don’t scrub by hand doesn’t get clean, so you have to be really thorough). After washing about 30 pieces of laundry, my back was sore, my arms were tired, and I had spent about an hour and a half washing (and these were just shirts and skirts and such - no jeans, towels, sheets, etc.). But at least the hard part was done, right? Wrong! Then I had to totally clean out the bucket and start rinsing the clothes…and it was so hard to get all of the soap out of the clothes (which I never actually accomplished = /…at least I’ll have fresh smelling clothing = ) And by that point, wringing the clothes out was so hard because my arms were literally at muscle exhaustion. Then it was time to hang all of the clothes, and 2 ½ hours after beginning, I was finished…with ONE LOAD! How any mother gets anything else done when she’s washing for a whole family is beyond me! I just think about how my mom would be doing laundry all day when we were growing up, as she washed our 5 or 6 loads of daily laundry, and that was with a washer AND dryer! It’s just amazing!
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