On Making Mundane Tasks Fun For All

I am, you are most likely aware, a creature of habit. I always drink my tea out of the blue teacup, I always start and end my sushi-train meals with nasu tenpura nigiri, and I always do my laundry on a Sunday. This carries with it several implications. For one, it means that I have to be in Bathurst on Sunday (although the fact that it is laundry day is now not the only reason why Sunday must see me at home), and secondly it means that my laundry must be completed before 6pm, lest I be kicked out of the laundromat and my precious clothes become forfeit. There are other implications that go with it, too, however none of them are quite so interesting (for instance, I have to go grocery shopping before I go to the laundromat, so that I have change to feed their insidious machines with.)

You may notice, long time readers, that this is not the first post I have made that starts with me talking about my laundry habits. In fact, the last time I talked about my washing, it became one of my most popular posts (with 107 views total.) It strikes me, as I'm sure it does a number of you, that the average person believes that laundry is an incredibly dull task akin, somewhat, to the illustration I have provided for you below (for your convenience I had created a gif animation of the video but it was too big, so if amusement is what you are after then the video actually has sound.) These people, however, could not be farther from the truth.

These things that one is forced to do in order to successfully meld with humanity, such as washing your clothing, cleaning your house, or mowing your lawn, are only dull and dreary because, in my experience, you let them be. What people need to do, I have found, is whip these activities into shape (resisting Devo joke...), and force them into submission - wrestle them, yell at them, torment them physically and emotionally until they relent and you are able to enjoy them. For mowing the lawn I treat it as though it's a mini-quest in a video game - I put my headphones in, and I mentally calculate the percentage of the lawn I have mowed, amongst other things. When I'm cleaning the house I put on some really bad 90's music (or some kick-arse indie music, depending on what iTunes says I should listen to) and finding a home for everything I own whilst singing and bopping around. And for laundry...well...if you take some friends with you, then anything can become an adventure (especially when you start being a tool with a camera.)

My washing took approximately an hour and 20 minutes to complete - 30 minutes in the washing machine, 40 minutes in the drier (plus 10 minutes leeway for "extra drying time") - and about 10 minutes into the whole process we got quite bored of just sitting there. So Squiggles starting laying on Emma (he was tired, after all), and the whole thing looked rather adorable. This prompted me to whip out my phone and sneakily take a photo of the two (because Emma is incredibly camera shy) and the whole thing just...devolved into a huge "I'm going to take pictures of you whether you are ready or not, so suck it up, precious" fight between Kylie and myself, while Squiggles and Emma just sat there being adorable. If you are wondering where the rest of the gang are for this quest, I guess that's a good question - Spud and Encey were visiting Spud's family, and Elmo was too busy for us because he was hanging out with his dorm. At least, that's what I'm sure the reason was.

Below are the better photos that were taken on Sunday, as well as suitably amusing (I hope) commentary on each. Enjoy.

Emma Does Not Like Having Her Photo Taken

Cutesy Coupley People

Dear Kylie: What Is It With Girls Being Camera Shy?

And Then I Took This Picture Of Kylie...Ahahaha

Emma And I Have A Headbutt Competition, Squiggles Played First And Died

Emma Performing 'True Resurrection' On Squiggles

But It Backfired And We Ended Up With A Romeo/Julie Situation

So I Poisoned Myself In Order To Convince Their Spirits To Return To Their Bodies

First I Consoled Emma

Then I Comforted Squiggles

I Talked To Them About The Good Old Days

About How Emma Was A Librarian

And How Squiggles Was A Puffer Fish

But Alas, It Was For Naught

Poor Kylie Had To Carry The Bodies Off, One By One

But At Least I Died Peacefully - The End

The moral of this story is that photo blogs are occasionally pretty cool to do - I have discovered that people enjoy voyeurism much more than they are willing to say. There is, ostensibly, something about living vicariously through others that satisfies a part of the human condition - regardless of how thrilling your actual life is. I mean, I trust that you all, as my loyal (or new!) readers, are all suitably adventurous and will slay the occasional embodiment of evil - yet you still enjoy seeing pictures of people you don't know, and video of my laundry spinning constantly around. And I'm just a tool with a camera.