Everything Old Becomes New Again

So apparently there's a "movement" going on to encourage people to only use cold water to wash their clothes in and to forego the dryer and use a laundry line.

For realsies- lookit-

http://www.laundrylist.org/index.php

Seriously?

I can do them two better- I use Ecos laundry soap (detergent-free, all natural) and I don't even own an iron.

I've hung clothes out to dry for over 30 years. I hung cloth diapers (Yes- I used those, too) out to dry in the winter in Wisconsin and took them off the line stacked like so many pieces of cardboard.

I do have a dryer. It sits on the porch and it's a little reject apartment-sized one (no 220 power needed) that I use if it's raining and cold and I need something like underwear quicker than hanging it in the house would make it available. Because thanks to the cozy permeability of propane heat, things hung in the shower dry overnight...even when it's cold and damp outside.

Like everything else, Spin is important.

Not "spin" as in part of the laundry cycle, but "spin" as in how you word what you are doing if you give a rat's ass about being socially acceptable (which I don't) or if you need to word something to be approved by some sort of authority (like a neighborhood appearances committee).

Wrong- "I'd like to put up a clothesline and will be literally airing my unmentionables for the neighbors to see".

Right- "I'm investing in a solar clothes dryer".

And about those unmentionables.

I know many people who are dyed in the wool clothes-hanger-outers who fret about where and how to position their underwear so as not to let everyone know they wear boxers, briefs, cartoon characters or super heroes under their solemn work clothes.

Here's the thing.

No one cares.

No one's looking and no one cares.

Hang 'em out, hang 'em high, and know that it's not disturbing to anyone to see your underwear.

What IS disturbing is to see a line full of clothes...and NO underwear.