The Boys in the Band (Reverse Harem)

Chapter 20: Domestic Things

Just as everyone was adjusting to life on the road, they were finished, and headed back toward New York City. They arrived back at their loft on a blazing hot August afternoon.

"Wow, funny how this place seems like home already, even though I've only lived here such a short time," Momoko marveled, looking around.

Everyone had congregated at the washing machine, dumping their dirty clothes into one pile on top of the state of the art washer and dryer. Momoko would've sold her soul to own such a beautiful washing machine and dryer. Her family in Japan still hung their clothes on a line to dry them.

"Oh my god, are you crazy?" Momoko asked. She looked at the pile of clothes, aghast. "You can't wash your clothes like that, just willy nilly, all mixed together! It's a crime to these beautiful appliances. Everything will end up this horrible gray color, like--" she looked around for a good example, "--like that shirt Jude's wearing!"

"Well, how'd you think it got this way, then?" Jude asked indignantly.

"That's why you can't wash them like that," Momoko explained patiently. "Now look, you have to divide them into at least three piles, see? Hot water whites, warm water brights, and cold water darks. Basically, you need to wash the clothes in the coldest water you can and still get them clean, that's what will make them last the longest, but they have to be with like colors--" While she was talking, her quick hands had been efficiently sorting the clothes into different piles, based on their colors and what they were made of.

"What about that?" Tommy asked, grabbing a shirt out of the "dark" pile. "It's yellow, shouldn't it be in the 'bright' pile?"

"You'd think so, but it's polyester, so it can go with the darks, warm water might make it ripple," Momoko said knowledgeably.

"And what about that?" Sully asked, pointing to a separate, smaller pile. "What temperature are those? They're all different colors."

"Those are dry clean only, but I can't afford the dry cleaner, so I just hand wash them in the sink," Momoko explained matter-of-factly.

"This is doing my head in," Jude said mournfully. "I just want a cup of tea."

"What do you do when your clothes get so gross you can't wear them anymore?" Momoko asked as she put the first load in.

The boys looked at each other.

"Buy new ones?" Dane answered as if should be obvious. "Every few months we just go to the store."

Momoko's head drew back as she stared at the boys. "My thrifty Japanese mother would lie down and die if she heard that," she declared. "Tell you what. I'm going to leave my laundry basket right here. Why don't you guys start leaving your dirty clothes in it, and I'll do the laundry for the whole loft, every day, and leave the clean, folded stuff right here on the counter whenever it's ready? Because honestly, your system? It blows."

The boys looked at each other. "You're volunteering to do our laundry?" Sullivan asked carefully. "Our dirty socks and underwear and everything?"

Momoko nodded. "They're my favorite. I love using hot water and bleach and getting dirty socks super white, like blue white, honest."

"I am so in," Tommy declared, leaning in to kiss Momoko on the mouth.

"Me too," the rest of the boys declared, leaning in to hug her and kiss her, taking turns.

"You realize that, just now, all by yourself, you've set the women's movement back, like, a hundred years?" Sully asked her.

Momoko shrugged. "I don't care, I like doing laundry and ironing and stuff, so I'm offering to do it, how's that setting anything back? I can't cook, I don't know how, so I'm not offering to do that all by myself, am I?"