Greek women iron everything. EVERYTHING. Mr Zeus and I only acquired our washing machine a few months back, and that was because his sister finally bought a new one, so we inherited her old one.
Prior to this great event, I was taking all our laundry next door to his mum's. Out of the kindness of her heart, she had a habit of taking the laundry down and returning it ironed. This drove me to feel hugely embarassed, but also admire her thoroughness. She ironed all the underpants, socks, towels and bedsheets.
Once we got our own machine, I was able to do the grown-up thing and take care of the laundry myself from start to finish. Early on, I did what I normally did, I ironed just the clothes.
"You don't understand." Mr Zeus said, holding up a crumpled pair of clean underpants. "You have to iron them to kill the germs."
The germs? What germs?
"The heat from the iron kills the germs, you have to do it for hygeine."
Riiiight. Because a 60C wash and 40C sunshine won't kill them. God knows why people believe this. Seems like some male conspiracy to create extra housework for women. Oh well, if you can't beat them...
4 comments:
Oh shit, I'm going to be in big trouble. I'm coming to Greece for six weeks, and I'll be darned if I iron anything at all. Now I have the answer why my sweetie always comes back home with all his stuff ironed in his suitcase, thanks for enlightening me, about the germs...ciao
Haha! You're right. My mother also irons EVERYTHING. Years and years of hearing that the iron kills all germs, I'm still a non-believer and refuse to iron anything except my clothes.
Yup, I only iron Mr Zeus smalls. My own I don't bother. I know the germs are long dead, but its obviously such a deeply engrained belief I don't want to cause my man anguish thinking about the germs in his underpants plotting against him. Simpler just to iron them.
I have never heard of the germ story... My mother irons everything "so that it's softer". Me, being a man and living in Britain, I have no reason to iron. No-one's bothered. I only did it when i was living in Spain, in which case, I ended up being ashamed looking like a Spaniard but dressed like an Irish EFL summer teacher, and started ironing...
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