100% Silk

Originally uploaded by laundrylessons.

My husband wears cotton. I’ve known him for twenty-two years, been married for eighteen years, and he’s always worn cotton. Madras, polos, khakis, jeans, all 100% cotton. But now, he throws me for a loop and starts buying 100% silk shirts. He has some long sleeve mock turtlenecks for winter and a couple of golf shirts for summer. He came back from Puerto Rico a couple weeks ago with a front button, Jimmy Buffet-ish silk shirt. Well, minus the parrots and palm trees.

He looks good in the silk shirts. They fit nicely and don’t wrinkle. But, they require special care. He even reads the labels and reports his findings to me as I throw the shirts into the heaping piles of dirty clothes. “My silk shirts need to be hand washed,” he yells as I stumble down the stairs with my load. Hmm, and this is when marriage gets interesting.

I don’t hand wash. We had a similar go around a few years ago about ironing. I don’t iron either. Yeah, I’ll press out my own pants if they’re looking bad, but I figured the third child was a trade off for ironing. We solved that battle. He takes his khaki’s to the cleaners for pressing. Kind of indulgent, but we’ve both realized that our marriage is important enough not to argue about ironing. But how did I get around the hand washing?

Well, I accidentally put the new silk shirt through the wash, and not even on the gentle cycle, but right in with the towels and jeans. Yikes. He even came looking for the shirt, but this was before I knew what I’d done. But when I pulled the load of darks from the dryer, that’s right it spun around in the blast furnace too, the shirt looked beautiful. If eighteen years of marriage has taught me anything it is that no one should ever lie. And I don’t. My husband and I share the good, the bad and the embarrassing stuff. So when the shirt went on the hanger I simply said, “Your new silk shirt laundered nicely.” No need to say how, or that I panicked and googled “silk care” and sweated while pressing it out.

Relationships change over time. With the holidays upon us we’ll all spend time with people we love. But illness or tragedy or success can influence people and make them act differently. We may have to handle some relatives with care, even though they used to be sturdy and reliable. Or we may be the ones who feel delicate this year. But when we love someone, we adapt to their changes or we tell them how we need to be handled. Silk shirts should be hand washed because the friction from the agitator can break the weak bonds in the fibers. Wishing you a Christmas season without agitation.