Ironing: The New Spa Treatment
By Gina Gort
 
As I stood in the aisle of a fluorescently lit mega store, I stared down the enemy. I was the only one in the ironing board section. I picked up an iron that was reasonably priced but still had a sophisticated look to it. My fingertips were met with a thin layer of dust. I inspected the iron; it even boasted a little headlight to shine your way through wrinkles. I pondered how archaic this whole idea was: a woman buying an iron to press her husband’s work shirts. I felt like all I needed was a Donna Reed hairstyle and frilly apron to match. Then I thought about how money had become so tight since purchasing a new home. Every little bit of the budget had to be nipped and tucked, including the dry cleaning bill. After all, I was a stay-at-home mom pursuing a writing career. It’s not like I do that much anyway. Dinner and house cleaning were part of the deal, so what was one more chore? Still, as I stood in the check-out line with my streamlined iron, adjustable ironing board and can of starch (in my college years I had fought so hard against for environmental reasons of course) I couldn’t help but feel a sinking feeling. It felt as though the very last part of my independent woman-hear-me-roar attitude had died. I scurried towards home to make the six o’clock dinner rush.

I gazed before me, the biggest possible pile of shirts awaited. I screamed out, “Are you sure all these are dirty?” with hopeless anticipation. 

He answered with a “Yes, Honey” knowing all to well the dread on my face.

I put the shirts into the wash on delicate and started to surf the internet for instructions on how to properly iron a shirt. I came across a great article entitled “If it takes you longer than five minutes to iron a shirt, then you are doing it all wrong.” I had ironed before but as a very young girl. My father was in the military, a master at all things clean and tidy. Ironing along with properly folding all his t-shirts and making a quarter bounce off of a freshly made bed were just a few of the great lessons learned. As far as I could remember, it had taken dad at least 10 minutes per shirt. I perused the article trying to pick up some tips when the dryer buzzer rang to signal that the war was about to begin.

I hung the shirts and then set up the board. I filled the little compartment marked as the water well on the iron and plugged it in. A tiny orange light blinked at me to signal the iron was reaching the correct temperature. I turned on the stereo and caught the beginning of my favorite song. The iron beeped and I headed into combat. The first shirt went well, a spritz here and there of starch, a whoosh of steam engulfed my face and I finished. I gazed 11 more to go and thought that this wasn’t too bad. All in all, it took me about an hour and half.

By the last shirt I had shaved off some time, I think in the future I may just get under the five-minute mark. I realized that I had just spent an hour and a half, listening to my music with no interruptions, and thinking about whatever I felt like. My face seemed refreshed from all that steam. Do you know what women would pay for an hour and a half to themselves? I thought about all those women rushing to and from the dry cleaners with gigantic dry-cleaning bills and pitied them. I think I may just have a couple nights a week to do the “ironing.”

Gina Gort is the author of a poem called “Mastodon,” which was published in the children’s book, A Curious Glimpse of Michigan (Edco Publishing, 2004), and she has numerous works under consideration by national publishers.
Gort is an author who enjoys writing stories that draw upon her experiences in marriage and mothering her special needs daughter.  Before motherhood, she studied 19th and 20th century literature, creative writing, and culinary arts at internationally renowned institutions.

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