Standing at the ironing board at around 10.00 p.m., while Jocasta sprayed unspeakable chemicals at the shower recess, I finally spotted the white plastic bottom of the ironing basket. It was quite a surprise, coming across it like this, after so many years. A door opened; an opportunity beckoned. I was one spotty shirt off achieving the unthinkable: a household in which there was no ironing waiting to be done. Teenagers may have different fantasies, but later it comes down to this: that, just once, you could iron everything. But the fantasy goes further, gets wilder. If you could just defeat the ironing, you tell yourself, the rest of your domestic life might somehow slot back into control. You’d be organised. You’d be triumphant. Master of the Recycling Pile. Controller of Shower-Stall Scunge. Lord of all Toilet Ducks. Of course, tomorrow there’ll be more ironing, great straggling piles of it, heaved in off the line. But for one night, tonight, it will disappear — the stack of laundry baskets, perched one atop the other, that tottering mountain of reproach.
What do You think about In Bed With Jocasta (2000)?
