By Patti Parish-Kaminski, Publisher
Clothes in the hamper always – one bad habit broken.
Folks with their coffee are a thing – a fairly serious thing. It’s a habit. I get it. I’m just not in the coffee club.
I don’t drink coffee – never have. My dad drank it growing up, and the smell was absolutely nauseating. Fortunately, he drank it at the office during the week, and most days, he was there by 7 am. So, I didn’t get assaulted by the funky fumes on the daily – just the weekend.
Mr. Kaminski doesn’t drink coffee. He never has either. I consider that a bonus as he has additional horrific habits I am forced to overlook on the daily. I have successfully changed some of these habits but not all.
Case and point. Shortly after we were married, Mr. Kaminski built us a house in First Colony. I liked that – room to grow. I don’t believe I realized at the time that we would actually live in said house together. Only child, remember? That was all fine and good until initially, we shared a bathroom and God forbid a closet. I quickly rectified that situation.
I soon discovered that Mr. Kaminski was a “shed clothes and let them lie where they lay” type individual. I was not. I quickly installed clothes hampers in every bedroom and bathroom and conducted a brief tutorial on the concept. Unfortunately, that didn’t take.
So, I quickly devised a Plan B. As the clothing was scattered to and fro on the floor, I promptly collected each and every item and put them in large, black plastic garbage bags. A couple of weeks went by before Mr. Kaminski noticed a deficit in his closet.
You see, initially, I was a really good wife. I did all the laundry for our home, so his query was on point. I quickly got over that doing everyone’s laundry business. God bless Sandra.
“Honey, I seem to be missing clothes,” he asked completely perplexed. “Are they in the laundry room? Do you know where they are?”
“Well, where did you leave them?” was my retort.
“What do you mean?” He was still clueless.
“Well, when you removed them, where did you put them?”
“I don’t know. Wherever.” Still clueless.
I quickly suggested a thorough search. “Let’s look in the hampers,” I suggested. Nothing, of course.
“Well, you didn’t leave them on the floor, did you?” I inquired in all seriousness.
“Probably,” he admitted.
“Well, I hope not, because if anything is on the floor, it’s garbage, and I’ve disposed of it.”
The light finally came on. “Wait, you threw my clothes away?” Panic ensued.
I asked him to accompany me to the garage where two large garbage bags of his clothes sat.
“Good thing garbage hasn’t come yet this week. I guess they’re here with the rest of the trash.”
Bad habit solved. To this day, Mr. Kaminski puts his dirty clothes in a hamper, and no, I don’t do his laundry.
There’s still a couple of habits I can’t quite cure him of. Going to the grocery store without a list and buying items willy nilly without investigating what we really need or don’t need. That’s why we have at all times seven jars of spaghetti sauce and 11 bags of chips. Falling asleep with the television blaring. Piling God knows what including what he ate for lunch the previous two days in his car.
Guess I need to work on a clever remedy for those bad habits, but frankly, now that’s he’s north of 60, think I’ll choose my battles. See y’all next week – on the porch!
Patti Parish-Kaminski
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