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to Iron a Shirt By Emily Seate Arguments are not encouraged nor are they well tolerated in my house, but good television...now that’s a different story. “All in the Family” broke ground in too many ways to count, but one episode returns to mind every time I iron a shirt. Archie and Meathead were discussing what would happen if the house caught on fire. Meathead said he’d put on his socks, then his shoes. Of course, Archie knew he could get out faster if he put on a sock and a shoe, then the other sock and shoe. Or perhaps it was the other way round and Meathead thought that. It no longer seems to matter. The more important issue to me is the dialogue, the way the two men pushed the argument to such an extreme, they almost came to blows. Back in the late 1970s, I happened to visit my in-laws one day. I’d been married to their son for less than a year, so it would be safe to say I didn’t know them very well. I certainly had no frame of reference for how much of a hornet’s nest I’d entered when I sat down at the kitchen table with my father-in-law, only to have him ask me how I ironed a shirt. Simple question, right? More like a land mine. Very quietly, my mother-in-law took another chair at the table. I related that I started with the sleeves, then the top of one side, then the yoke, then the top of the other side. Before I could go any farther, he slammed his fist down on the table. “See? I told you,” he said to his wife, more forcefully than I would have liked. My mother-in-law said not one word, but her lips got thinner from compression. Innocently, I asked, “How do you iron a shirt?” “Like you,” he replied, then went on. “Your mother-in-law starts with the yoke and the collar. It’s just wrong,” he said. I muddled through with some comment about how it doesn’t matter as long as the shirt gets ironed, and left as soon as I could. Since then, I’ve queried others about shirt ironing, and found there’s more than two ways to perform the act. My mother irons the collar last, just like I do, but she starts out the same way my mother-in-law did. A fourth way is to not iron at all. One of my dear friends has mastered the art of snatching shirts from the dryer and pulling and tugging them so that she never has to iron. I feel I should take lessons. But then I would not be encouraged to remember fondly those two dear folks, now dead, and the argument over how to iron a shirt. Today I asked my husband how his mother taught him to iron a shirt, and I tried her method. I would probably not admit this in public, but between you and me, I think the shirt looked just a little better. Emily Seate is an award-winning author with her own publishing house <http://www.webeushouse.com/> (We be us 'cause we can't be anyone else!) Through Webeus House, Emily has a first novel, Ah-mah, Book I of the HeartMind Chronicles, and a first poetry book, Foolish Wisdom. The White Crown, Book II in the HeartMind Chronicles, concerns the true Scorpion King of ancient Egypt, Ah-Mah's grandson, and is scheduled to be released in the near future. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Emily_Seate |
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