Uncle Percy Does The Laundry

After a few crazy slip-ups during our visit to a restaurant, uncle was comparatively sensible, responsible and calm. But this blissful calmness was not to stay. Soon came laundry day, the worst days of our visits to aunt's house.

Out of the three months, we spend at Aunt Maureen's house, we spent a total of fifteen days doing the laundry, one day a week. We, unfortunately, were not allowed to use the washing machine and to top it off, were assigned the worst laundry partner on Earth: Uncle Percy. He would shout at us to wash the clothes faster, use hair dryers to dry, then instead of the clothesline (he said it would spare space on the line, and we would be able to cover more laundry in lesser time, although our clothesline is three meters) and would finally make Tamara, Pepper and me do the worst job: taking the clothes off the lines and ironing them. I mean, who gives a ten-year-old ( Pepper), a fourteen-year-old ( me) and a seventeen-year-old (Tamara) clothes to iron? Of course, we had Tyson, Millie, and Rebecca, but those triplets were a step lower than the uncle. Their capabilities included splashing the wash bucket, foam surfing, getting soap in their eyes, and crawling all over the clean washing with muddy hands.

"Alright, let's get this over with. Now, Rachel, you go get the buckets, soap, and brushes. Tamara, get the hair dryers. Pepper, go get the clothes, then run down to the shop and get me a magazine." We all grumbled under our breath and started to work. Then my aunt surprised us. "Go ahead and use the washing machine. I think the start of your holidays should be more fun than this." Uncle heard this and said, "Pepper forget the magazine. I'll help." "As if," I muttered to the other two.

 We started with all the whites. When it was the lot with all the uncle's clothes, we decided to have a bit of fun. So we had the little ones load the clothes. Of course, a few colored clothes made their way into the washing machine. Soon all of us were roaring with laughter. Uncle heard all the laughter and asked, "What in the world is going on?" We all stopped laughing immediately. Pepper began "Um, uncle, we had the triplets load the washing machine." "They were really fascinated with it," I chimed in. "Yeah, and they accidentally put the pinks in it too," Tamara finished. So you're saying the pink clothes are in the wash with my whites?" We nodded. He screamed, "Oh God! I'll be wearing pink instead of white everywhere I go." "Well you did want everything to be done faster,' Tamara pointed out. "Be quiet! As a punishment, you will not be allowed to use the dryer to dry the clothes. Only the hairdryer. And scrub everything by hand." Then he smiled. "But you're not machines. So I will help you out by doing a bit of the ironing." We erupted in cheers. If uncle could do even one piece of cloth without messing up, he would be motivated enough to do the rest.

So off we went. First, Tamara showed the triplets how to dry the clothes with hair dryers. The result was as expected. Soon the three of them, wearing gloves, were having the time of their life blow-drying the clothes and doing our work. So the three of us set of scrubbing the clothes, till we could scrub no more. That is, till Tamara and I could scrub no more. Pepper was definitely high energy, still scrubbing at top speed. This went on till only the red clothes were left. We took a break, ate a few muffins, and came back to a surprise.

On the floor, were the triplets, washing the clothes, with all the other clothes dry. Well actually, Millie and Rebecca were washing, Tyson was drying them. "Whoa, and we thought Pepper was high energy," I said. I wish I could say Uncle Percy was doing equally well, but when has that ever happened? Shouts and screams could be heard from the ironing room. We ran into the room and there was good old Uncle Percy tying to iron the clothes, with bandaged fingers. "What happened uncle," we asked. "Well, I tried to stick to my promise and iron the clothes. I hurt my fingers and went to your aunt for some ointment. She lost her temper and sent me out of the room. So I tried to continue, but as you can see, I'm not so good." Wow. Since when did uncle try to fulfill his promises? The last promise he fulfilled was to sleep for 24 hours straight. So we set to work, ironing the remaining clothes when we heard squealing outside the door. The kids did the laundry, dried it and tried to open the door to give it to us. When uncle saw this he groaned, "Great. More ironing." "We will do it, uncle. Just tell aunt to make us a gigantic lunch, " I said to uncle, a smile on my face. And the second he left, we groaned, "Great. More ironing."