Dear Laundry Fairy,

In the past, I have complained about you and the response has been somewhat minimal and short lived, so I will now put my complaints in writing, addressed directly to you, which my therapist has advised.

Laundry Fairy, There are ups and downs in every relationship, I know this, I'm married for heaven's sake, but lately there seem to be more downs than ups. Often, you do a great job and I may have taken that for granted. I realize that you are not in a payed position, that I am allotted one laundry fairy in my life time. According to Wikipedia, my life expectancy is about 74 years. That means that we have approximately 43 years left together, and it disconcerts me that I will have to live with your un-laundry-like behavior for all those years. We must commit to working on our problems before another 30 years go by.

I think it might be helpful to give you a few pointers that may make our laundry-marriage more satisfying:

1. It is not helpful if you repeatedly move clean folded and separated clothes from the bed (staging area) to a basket or the floor, (or open suitcase as I found it this morning). What is helpful is placing each pile into the drawer that it belongs in. That would help.

2. Taking all the clean laundry out of the dryer and throwing it anywhere with out folding it makes life harder. It is better not to move dry laundry at all, unless you can fold it and place it neatly in baskets.

3. Anything that is labeled 100% linen or Rayon or cotton that seems to fit me shouldn't ever be moved into the dryer. It shrinks and I can't wear it anymore, and it forces my husband to have to spend more money on my clothes. This is money that could be spent on fishing and eating out, if you would quit ruining my clothes.

4. Laundry baskets are for carrying clean or dirty laundry from one place to another. If your passage to anywhere in our home is obscured by a laundry basket full of clothes, it is customary for laundry fairies to pick up said basket and deposit it in the proper place.

5. If my husband is out of any piece of clothing, it is your responsibility to alert me to this. Then I can remedy the situation. If you wait until he is searching for his socks at 6:00 in the morning, it is too late.

6. If you notice that my husband is out of any piece of clothing and you are anywhere in the vicinity of a laundry device, perhaps you can place the laundry into the washer so that it will then be ready for the dryer.

7. If you move laundry from the washer into the dryer, please refer to suggestion (read RULE) #3. If you move laundry out of the dryer, please refer to suggestion (read RULE here too) #2.

Thank you Laundry Fairy, I know that if we try to work this out we will all be much happier, because anyone who lives with me knows that when I am mad at the laundry fairy, no one gets to be happy!