True Grit
When Bad Cohen's grandmother moved out of the treehouse, we helped her to sort through some of the stuff in the tiny storage area under the stairs.Among some of the family heirlooms, like paintings by BC's greatgrandfather, was a large metal tub, about 2 feet across, and 2 feet high. "What is this?" I asked naively.
"That," she laughed, "is my mother's laundry tub."
In this one bucket, her mother, a true descendant of pioneers, washed laundry, linens, diapers, and more, for her entire family. At least once a day.
I'd forgotten all about it until this week, when an unseasonable, and unseasonably long, cold-snap froze and then burst the pipes leading to our washing machine, in the uninsulated garage. The toddler walked in to the bathroom one evening to find me stomping up and down on his clothes in a bathtub full of soapy (and increasingly dirty) water.
"Why are you standing on my shirt, mama?" he asked, his little brow wrinkling.
Soon, we'll have our fabulous modern convenience back, and I can forget about the huge quantities of dirt that kept coming out of clothes, no matter how many times I rinsed them. We will probably never have to live this "primitively" again (with our nice warm water and laundry soap and indoor bathtub and working dryer).
But I wonder where that laundry tub ended up.
posted by Tzipporah at 2:36 PM
2 Comments:
Savage Kitten's mom likes white tenants. Not because she likes white people, you understand, but because unlike her fellow Toishanese, they are less likely to wash their clothing in the bathtub.
Oh, and because white people ALWAYS eat out, NEVER use the kitchens in rental units.
Such spendthrifts, those white people.
His MOM used that thing? That blows my mind. We've got it so good; our lives have been entirely freed up for neuroses. What a blessing.
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