I Think I Left the Iron On

To quote a “Very Funny Fellow” – I started out as a child.

I spent the first twenty-four years of my life acting like a child and doing some rather childish things. I didn’t date much before then and even when I did reach the one quarter century mark, I still much preferred ‘playing’ to working. I played hockey and baseball and football whenever I could. I skipped work occasionally so that I could play these games, and others. Some would have called me immature, but I prefer to think of my habits and behaviors as simply efforts to preserve my youth. In my 28th year, I got married (finally, by my mother's account). After being on my own for my entire life to that point, it was difficult for me to get used to the things I needed to do as a married man. I had to refrain from executing some of my favorite bodily functions in public (or even in private). I couldn’t watch sports on television any more than two or three hours per week. Dishes had to be washed after every meal. Bathing, showering and shaving became almost daily expectations. Chairs could no longer be used for hanging my clothes. And, articles left on the floor for more than one or two days often disappeared from my collections altogether.

As one half of a married couple, I often found myself in department stores and appliance depots, deliberating over purchases, the likes of which I had never deliberated over before. I became deft at spotting a powerful vacuum cleaner. I was able to differentiate between a good blender and a low-quality blender. Making choices about drapes and carpeting, bed linen and bath towels became only a few of my areas of expertise. One of the more intriguing items which I was a participant in purchasing was the electric clothes iron. I knew that my mother and my aunts and my sister all owned clothes irons, along with the ironing board that seemed necessary to supplement the work of the ‘iron’ itself. I had seen any number of female members of my family actually using an ‘iron’, so I knew generally how to use one and what to expect, as far as results go. I had no idea however, how much an iron cost or what features to look for on a clothes iron, so I did not really know where to start when it came time for buying one. Not to worry though, I soon found out. Yes, I soon found that I was married to someone that was so much more than excited to help me with that new aspect of my education. My wife at that time was more of an expert on clothes irons than most could imagine – more than I could imagine anyway.

Our first iron was a 1200-watt Proctor Silex (17011 model) with the vertical steamer and the DuraGlide ceramic non-stick soleplate. I remember thinking what heft it possessed as I first picked it up from the display shelf in the store. It felt a little like a curling stone – for those who are familiar with that particular game. One of the features of this particular model was the adjustable 'steam settings' dial that the iron was fitted with. There were fabric names included on the control console of this iron that were not yet common terms in the world of fashion and clothing. This model was so contemporary that some of those names were listed only as chemical formulae. My wife took it out of the box while we were still in the car, driving on the freeway home, and fondled it on her lap, much like an Ozark-mountain man might caress a gun or a small pig or a banjo. There was a far-away stare in her eyes as she stroked the gleaming ceramic non-stick soleplate. For the first time in my married life, I felt afraid.

On reaching our driveway, I turned my head to the left to check for obstacles as I pulled into the garage. Looking back to my right, my wife was already gone, the passenger door still swinging in the vapor trail left by her now-vanished body. I carried our supplies, including the empty cardboard iron box, into the house and put things away.

When I went upstairs to change my clothes, I was met with a, “Don’t sit on the bed. I don’t want that pile of clothes I just ironed to fall over and get all wrinkled.”

For the second time in my married life I felt afraid. I changed my clothes while standing, again mortified by the thought of losing my balance and falling into one of the cathedral-like peaks still-growing majestically in the center of our bedroom. I didn’t see her again for the remainder of that day and well on into the evening of the next day. Finally, she emerged from the laundry room with her new iron raised triumphantly over her head and an ironing board, still warm, in the other hand, waving in the breeze like a flimsy piece of balsa wood.

“I’m finished for now!!”, she exclaimed.

“For now?”, I thought. “What could possibly be left to iron within a 20-mile radius of this place? You just ironed everything in the house that is foldable and softer than cardboard.”

“Oh, don’t be silly. You are such a joker,” she went on.

From that day forward, ironing became my wife’s uncontrollable and passionate obsession. She ironed in the morning when she got out of bed. She ironed at lunch time when she came home from work. She ironed while I fixed dinner and she ironed after dinner while she watched television. Bed sheets, towels, shirts, skirts, pillow cases, sweaters, slippers, handkerchiefs, you name it – it got ironed. For the first time in my married life, our dog felt afraid.

In the next few years of our marriage, we both received promotions at work that resulted in quite significant raises in pay. We bought a trailer to pull behind the car and we started travelling to all different parts of the country every time we had a few weeks off. Our first trip was to the Grand Canyon, which was about a five-hour drive from our home. We packed the trailer, er . . . well, I packed the trailer while my wife finished up some last-minute ironing before we were to leave the next morning.

About an hour into the trip, my wife turned to me and said, “I think I left the iron on.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yeh, I’m sure. I remember ironing my nightie and then folding it directly into my suitcase and then rushing to the bathroom to . . . Yeh, I’m sure I left it on.”

I pulled over into a highway turnout and maneuvered around and then waited for the number of cars to thin out. I got back onto the road and headed home. In 55 minutes, we were there. I sat in the car while my wife went in and shut off the iron. When she came out and got into the car, I didn't bother to ask if, indeed, the return trip had been necessary to unplug the iron. I just assumed, as always, that she was right. We proceeded to the Grand Canyon and enjoyed the rest of our vacation.

The next spring we decided to drive to Disneyland. We followed the same sort of routine the day before our departure. My wife ironed clothes while I packed the car and the trailer. That is one of the many nice things about being married – each partner assumes a role and then fulfills it without ever having to think about it. A person expends a lot less energy going through life like that.

About an hour out of Anaheim, my wife turned to me and said, “I think I left the iron on.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yeh, I’m sure. I remember ironing my blouse and then folding it directly into my suitcase and then rushing to the bathroom to . . . Yeh, I’m sure I left it on.”

To which I replied, “Well, we can’t go back now. We’ve been driving for nearly two days. I’ll phone the neighbours and tell them where the extra key is and then maybe they can go in and turn it off. I just hope the house doesn’t burn down in the mean time.”

I pulled into a roadside diner and went in to find a phone. After about an hour of dealing with operators and coins to be used in the pay-phone, I finally got hold of our neighbour's 92-year-old grandmother who had apparently been living with them for a number of years. After a lengthy Q&A period, we established that, indeed, I was the one on vacation and she was the one who was living next door to the house in which the iron had been left on. As a long-time neighbour of this family, one would think that somewhere along the line I would have met this woman. However, I could not, for the life of me, recall such an encounter. Was she even ambulatory? Certainly her lucidity was already in question? I had no idea whether or not she would be able to find the hiding spot for the spare key, then navigate the house alarm system, climb the stairs, find the room with the iron, follow the power cord from the iron to the wall outlet and then have the strength to pull the cord end out of the wall. I think I would have enjoyed my countless rides “aboard the Disneyland Express” much more if my wife had simply forgotten to tell me about the iron altogether, leaving us to come home to a pile of blackened timbers and smoking stacks of well-pressed linen.

Our next vacation was planned for Graceland. Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee.

“I’m going to Graceland,” I thought, as I packed the car and while my wife was busy with the last of the ironing.

That year was different though. That year I was going to check the iron myself before we left on our two-week journey. Not only did I check the iron and unplug the damn thing, but I made a video of me actually removing the cord from the outlet. Then I took pictures of the iron sitting upright on the ironing board with the unplugged cord dangling around the non-stick soleplate. I had paper copies of the photos made and I put them in my traveler’s pouch so that they would be handy for me to find, and show my wife when she wondered about leaving the iron on. Sure enough, just as we were arriving at Graceland, my wife looked over at me and stated:

“I think I left the iron on.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yeh, I’m sure. I remember ironing my blue jeans and then folding them directly into my suitcase and then rushing to the bathroom to . . . Yeh, I’m sure I left it on.”

After I parked the car, I reached into my touristy little pouch and pulled out the photographs. I showed them to her, one at a time, and smiled a little smile after each mini-presentation. After she had seen each and every one of those shiny little pictures, I asked her if she was now satisfied that the iron was indeed, NOT ON.

She answered, “That’s not the iron I was using though.”

“What the Hell,” I gasped, “you mean we have more than one iron now? When did that happen?”

“I bought another one,” she said, “the old one was wearing out. It’s been used quite a lot.”

The drive back into Memphis and to the airport was a long (and very quiet, I might add) sojourn. I remember shaking her hand as I left her at the security checkpoint in the terminal building. When I returned home two weeks later, I recall my detailed synopsis of the remainder of the holiday. I also vowed to myself, after the trip to Memphis, that I would never again go on any sort of vacation with that woman – not as long as we had an iron or irons in the house anyway.

But, time goes on and as it goes on, it heals all wounds, I'm told. And, before I knew it, we were planning another holiday and I was looking forward to being out again on the open road. That year was different though. We still had multiple irons in the house but, I made it my life’s quest to know and document the location and power status of every single one of them before we ever put rubber to the road.

We drove to the Mexican border at Ciudad Juarez. While we waited in line to go through the checkpoint, I could see my wife becoming edgy and more and more agitated as the moments passed. I asked her if she was planning on perhaps smuggling some drugs across the border.

She replied, “No, but maybe even worse. I think I left the iron on.”

“Oh yeh?” I snickered.

“Yeh, I’m sure. I remember ironing some scarves and then folding them directly into my suitcase and then rushing to the bathroom to . . . Yeh, I’m sure I left it on.”

At that point, I chuckled a sinister and evil laugh. I turned off the engine, opened my driver’s side door, climbed out of the car, stomped around the front of our vehicle, reached the front door handle on my wife’s side of the car, pulled it open, reached in and grabbed my wife by the arm, yanked her out of the car screaming and, basically dragged her back to the trunk of the car.

I stared at her menacingly and raised my voice above her screams, “You have left the iron on, or imagined that you have left it, or them, on for the last time my dear. Your leaving-the-iron-on days are over. Say good-bye to those days forever and ever.”

With that, and while still grasping her arm, I opened the trunk of car, shoved her head into the yawning dark cavity and stated, “Nope, I think you’re wrong. All four of them seem to be right there in front of you and they all appear to be unplugged. So, I guess that means you didn’t leave any irons on after all. If you understand me, my good wife, please nod in the affirmative."

A lone trumpet could be heard clearly in the distance and mariachi music played as we drove away from the checkpoint and into Juarez.