Ironing out the wrinkles

It is no secret that the economy has hit everyone hard in certain ways… Almost every family I know has cut back in one way or another.

We have done our share to save, for example, my wife fights her way through couponmom.com and the Sunday paper, on the weekends, to locate the different brands we buy. Luckily for us, this is the last month, for a while we will need to purchase any formula! I find it so impressive when we go to the grocery store and after all is said and done we have saved close to if not more than $50 off what our regular bill would have been.
Pinchin’ our pennies led us to forgo the fun movie channels on our Dish Network Satellite. We have since enrolled in Netflix and in doing so saved us about $60 per month.

We have resorted to ironing our dress clothes for work. I have numerous meetings I have to go to each week and so I need to have pressed and starched dress shirts readily available. We really like the cleaners we use. I drive up and they know me by name without even saying a word.
They are an asian couple, as most dry cleaners are and the wife has to be the nicest lady I’ve ever known.

“Oh hello, E-dic, how’s de baby?”

But, I certainly don’t get that type of reception when I drive up and the husband is there. I show up and he immediately goes to the cash register and heads back to get my clothes. He heads out, opens my car door (this is a drive-thru cleaners, by the way) puts the clothes in the back seat and hands me a receipt and tells me the amount I owe all without any type of salutation or greeting. I hand him my credit card, sign and am on my way. I can give “credit” he is pretty efficient without the banter of talking to customers. Maybe that’s just how his egg rolls!

Okay, I cannot take recognition doing our ironing, I have probably pressed three shirts in the two years my wife and I have been married, but I guess to her it is something she wants to do for her man. I wouldn’t want her out mowing the lawn. Don’t get me wrong, we are in no way making each other do certain duties, but this is how our marriage works!

I sit here typing this blog as my wife, so lovingly, sways back and forth in her long, gray pajama pants and blue school polo, hair twisted up in a sexy mess with her white pearl earrings still in her ears that she obviously has forgotten to take out from the work day. She painstakingly slides back and forth with her silver Shark iron in her right hand and a can of Niagara starch in her left. It seems just like yesterday that we received our iron as a gift from our wedding registry, we had no idea how much use it would of gotten.

“I like this shirt honey,” said my wife while holding a blue and white checked J.Crew shirt. “You should wear it more, it looks great on you!”

“Thanks babe,” I said. “You wouldn’t believe how old it is..”

“Well, I like it.” She replied turning and rubbin' her pregnant belly. “The bigger I get the more you should watch for this to end up on my side… Oh – Shhhed$#@!!!”

I turn and see the ironing board rocking back and forth in a swaying motion that of course set our very state-of-the-art iron Shark diving to the floor in a downward dive. Please understand we have hardwood in our bedroom and the end result to something like an iron falling on it cannot be a good one.

“Oh, are you okay?” I say while I look at Laura.

“Yes.” She replied, her face now a bit pink from the panic moment that just occurred.

I know I was hoping she was okay, but a large part of me was worried about our floor. Don’t get me wrong, I was so glad to know my wife hadn’t burnt herself, but I was almost equally curious if she had burnt the floor. The floor in our dining room has already been ruined from our dogs taking the opportunity to skip the outside pee route.

“How is it?” I carefully asked.

Laura is already sensitive from being pregnant, so I wanted to tread lightly and not make her feel any worse than she already felt. Besides, she was ironing MY shirts…

“It just left a little mark,” she said while bending down to feel the mark the Shark had gashed in our hardwood.

“Wait, what is that?” I asked.

“What?” she replied, “Oh…”

She bend down again, but this time her head went under the ironing board itself with the iron resting gingerly waiting to make another nose dive into our floor, but this time it would of gone right on Laura’s neck.

"It's just a white piece of.."

“Laura.” I said quietly and softly with my eye on hers.

“Yes?” she said while standing up and missing the board by the width of an American Express card.

“All I need for you to do is bump that, burn yourself, and we are off to the ER!”

She looked at me smiling that smile she usually gives me when she knows she has done something to irritate me.

We are certainly trying to save money, but my wife better be more careful or she may end up seriously injured from “The Shark!”