Publisher

Now that Elsbeth has me somewhat trained in the culinary arts, I eggcel at boiling cackleberries for exactly five minutes while also making the coffee and toasting anguished muffins while she is upstairs in the shower (I guess).

But she is never content. In fact, she has been slowly expanding my domestic duties. I have now earned a merit badge for making the bed. I am tempted to call in a drill sergeant from Fort Lewis to bounce a dime off of it.

And I have learned to pick up the dirty laundry and carry it downstairs to the laundry room where I deposit it in something called a hamper.

But as a laundress I am woeful. In fact, I have to wear a little badge around the house that reads, Trainee. Oh, she tried to tell me you don't put colored stuff in with white and she watched me punch those buttons until I could show her I knew how to put the detergent in and close the lid without hurting myself.

But oh, no, that wasn't good enough. I had to learn how to lift those wet, heavy clothes out of the washer and stuff them in the dryer and turn the knob. Then I noticed that both machines are Maytags, which she got at Wiseman's Appliance in West Seattle.

While I was watching the dial on the dryer to see if it was working, I fell into a reverie about my own mom doing laundry.

For years she used an old-fashioned knucklebuster scrub board. So we kids all ran down to the basement the day she first got a washing machine with a wringer. A Maytag, no less. It was awesome. Dad must have hit a windfall to afford it.

One of my vivid memories was helping her carry the basket of wet clothes out to the backyard clothesline. I was too short to hang them, but I handed her the clothespins, and loved to see those drippy duds dancing on the line.

Clothes weren't the only thing that needed scrubbing in a family of nine kids. We also had to jump in the bathtub ourselves at least once a week. Every Saturday night my brother Russ and I took our weekly plunge together to save hot water.

Naturally, we made a game out of it. We soaped up the rim of that tub with lots of bubbles and used it as a slippery track, skidding around the perimeter on our soapy posteriors.

Once Russ gave me a giant shove and I zipped around and bashed my beak on the water spout. Not only did we send a huge wave onto the linoleum, but when my face bounced off that spigot I let out a fearful screech, which brought our irate Dad upstairs. Seeing me in distress, he whacked Russell across his bare backside with a plunger handle.

It seemed rather severe, and I felt bad about putting up such a tearful show. Dad was probably perturbed because we interrupted his ritual of working the cherished crossword or maybe water was coming through the ceiling.

The crossword wasn't his only recreation. In fact, I can't recall that he ever held a workaday job. He was a salesmen. a hustler of investment dollars for a number of get-rich schemes. But he always had enough money for a bottle of whiskey.

Then one day he came home in a taxi and announced to Mom that he had somehow gotten $721 for something he did. This was staggering news. I could hardly wait to go outside and blab it all over the neighborhood.

My father was finally rich beyond our wildest dreams with money few men would ever see. Maybe we could have a car. Maybe we could get a haircut from a barber. Maybe he used some of it to buy Mom that Maytag. I know she was delighted.

I heard her tell several of the ladies at Mallory Avenue Christian Church the following Sunday. She said the word Maytag with extra emphasis.

Little did I know the early training in the backyard with a fistful of clothespins would prepare me for an apprenticeship with the Queen of Clean from Dusseldorf.

Next thing I know she'll have me folding sheets or ironing shirts.