Between our three families, and families we know, somebody was always elbow-deep in a hamper. Soccer jerseys on Tuesday. Church clothes on Sunday. Pool towels, work attire, travel team uniforms, a mountain of sheets from a sleepover that got out of hand. Every single week.
At some point we started doing the math. It wasn't the washing that got us — it was everything around it. The sorting. The switching. The folding while something beeped at you from the dryer. The putting-away. The hunt for the missing sock. We were each losing close to ten hours a month to laundry. Ten hours we could have spent coaching, watching, cheering, praying, running, traveling, eating with our families, or, occasionally, doing absolutely nothing at all.