Death by Laundry

Once upon a time, in a land far far away (yet close enough that most mother's can relate), there was a young mother who had been sick for an entire week. During this week, she hadn't done any laundry - despite it being an item on her daily to do list.

While getting her child and herself dressed that morning, she exclaimed, "Oh no! We are out of clean clothes!"

After breakfast was finished and the dishes safely in the kitchen, the mother went downstairs to the dark, scary basement with a large load of clothes. The washer was growling in hunger as she fed it more and more dirty clothes! It was no wonder that it was starving as it had been seven days since the family had last fed it!

Finally the washer-beast was full of dirty clothes and demanded a drink of water to wash its meal down with detergent for dessert. The mother felt very satisfied with her job of feeding the hungry washer and went upstairs to do a load of dishes so that no other creatures would get oh so grumpy as the two laundry beasts in her basement.

About an hour later, the mother heard the washer-beast burp and snarl. She raced back downstairs to feed the clean, wet clothes to the dryer who was pacing back and forth. The dryer-beast was really grumpy that the washer-beast had been fed and it had to wait an extra hour before it would get fed! After feeding the dryer-beast, she fed the washer-beast again since the beast was still grumbling in hunger.

This continued all day long with the mother feeding the beasts every hour to keep them from getting too grumpy. The washer-beast would burp and snarl signaling that the clothes were ready for the dryer-beast while the dryer-beast kept spitting the clean, dry clothes up for the mother to carry upstairs to fold.

Instead of folding each batch of clothes though, the mother just kept adding to the pile of clean laundry for her to fold at the end of the day. The rooms got fuller and fuller... and fuller... until the mother was buried in clean clothes and had to fold them all as she dug her way out!

"How does only one kid and two adults make this much laundry?!" she mourned as she folded yet another basket full of clothes that she would still have to put away in the various dressers the family had.

But, at least the two beasts in the basement - the washer-beast and the dryer-beast - were well fed and content to sleep quietly now that so many clothes had been fed to them! The silence was slightly odd in the home that had been filled with growls and snarls most of the day.

Finally the clothes were all folded and put away. As the mother sat down on the couch she exclaimed, "That was a close call! I almost died by the laundry!"

The young child, watching his mother get to finally relax, cooed in delight at the day's great adventure! The mother smiled at her son, almost like she knew how big of an adventure today had been for him to watch her feed the terrifying beasts in the basement.