18) Sweaters

The chair in the laundry was always a relief to Nilima. She would have protested that she didn't need it, had anyone asked. Fortunately, no one ever had, so she could give in to her weakness and sit while she folded and hung laundry. Admittedly, the bulk of her work in the laundry was not even doing that, but laying out her sweaters to air dry.

She liked her sweaters most of the time, except for when she had to clean them. A wet sweater was unnecessarily heavy, and they loved to get themselves tangled and twisted. Untangling them was an exercise in patience, and once she did that, then she had to get them onto the drying racks. All in all, doing laundry each week was a tiring exercise. Sometimes, her assistant would pre-empt her and do her laundry for her, but Nilima tried to avoid that. She didn't want to have to rely on another person for even basic chores like laundry. Her assistant was more for handling renting out her old studio and home, and for helping her with constructing new shells. Responsibility for her chores wasn't part of it.

Honestly, though, the most unfair part of needing to clean her sweaters was that she now needed to do it so much more frequently than when she had lived in the city. Lockettes didn't even sweat... Living on a farm just involved a lot of dirt, dust, and animal hair, unfortunately. Nilima found herself making peace with that again every time she cleaned her clothes.