Laundry List

Things have been hectic around our house. Between refinancing our home, beginning the school year, returning from vacation and dealing with a sick baby, the house has simply fallen apart from neglect.

While ironing in the WEE hours of the morning (2am to be precise), I was putting together a laundry list of things that I need to do in order to feel functional again. Then my sleep deprived brain got to wandering. ~ Why do we call it a laundry list? ~ Really, I know that laundry should probably always remain on top of that list, but is it bad enough to necessitate that the list be it’s namesake?

So rather than do all of my many chores this morning (cuz’ I’m great at procrastinating), I decided to research the term Laundry List. Here is what I found out:

It comes from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century when many sent their laundry out to be cleaned.

Columnist Ed Quillen who worked in a commercial laundry shop as a boy wrote in the Denver Post June 6, 2008, that the term refers to what must be listed when you send your laundry to a service, since 1) there were so many distinctions between different pieces of clothing for men, women, children, and various professions, and 2) the laundry service had to mark every individual piece of clothing per customer, sort into piles by color and water temperature, and ensure that all the pieces were returned to their proper owner.

A laundry list could be very personalized per customer, and might have been frequently re-used for loyal customers. Those with long laundry lists had more clothes and were probably more wealthy than others, and all their belongings would have been more difficult to track.

Through the years the term has come to mean any relatively long, detailed list of items.

source: Answers.com

Well, there it is. A laundry list is a long list.

Yup, that’s what I have; a long list.

With laundry at the top of it.

Drat! Now that my research is done I need to find another way to procrastinate. Or maybe I should actually do a few things on that list. Decisions. Decisions.