The Poodle Press

Our dog Lola likes to lie on the laundry. If there’s a pile of laundry anywhere – and there often is, she

Lola on the job.

will climb to the top of the teetering mound and lie on it.

The laundry I leave piled up is clean. (Honest.) Here’s my thinking: it’s clean so it’s done. You can just pull out what you need.

My husband is not entirely comfortable with this approach. So, I tell him that Lola provides an extra step in the laundry process, “the poodle press.” It’s why we look as crisp and pressed as we do, I say, plus it gives Lola a sense of purpose. He remains skeptical.

I HATE folding laundry. It is a tedious, thankless, pointless, never-ending task. Everyone has chores they hate, right? My husband hates to unload the dishwasher. My sister hates to look through her mail. I hate to fold the freaking laundry.

And ironing? Ha! Among the many things my mother will not let me forget is the time we got our young daughter a doll house for Christmas and she held up a little plastic iron attached by a string to a little plastic ironing board. “What’s this?” she wanted to know.

But, hey, we don’t need an iron to press our clothes. We have Lola.