Holding Lindsay’s Dirty Laundry.....

A few days ago I had one of those quotidian epiphanies, a homemade insight that caught my breath.

I bent over to pick up my basket of dirty laundry to take it where I could throw everything in a washing machine and be done in half an hour. It was mostly sheets and towels, a pair of overalls, some short sleeved t-shirts I won’t be needing for awhile now that it’s turned cold, and an odd assortment of socks and underwear. The underpants on the surface of the basket I tucked further down below a pillow case, hearing my mother’s voice saying something like "people don’t want to see your dirty underwear" even if it’s not very dirty. It’s just one of those unwritten rules some of us live by out of consideration for others and/or fear of being discounted by them for being crude.

As I hid the violators below the politically correct items, I saw a parallel violation in the way some of our citizens, including myself, have hung Lindsay’s dirty laundry out for everyone to see. There are some things that just aren’t done in a small town, and pointing fingers while shouting is one. But we’ve been doing that very thing, mostly from a sense of betrayal, but also from deep frustration. Some days it seems like there is no way to get our government to listen to, much less act on, the information and bad faith relations we’ve discovered, the supporting data for our concerns.

And some days, just holding that information feels overwhelming. The findings of the 2009-2010 audit, which included mistakes from several years prior that had not been identified by the previous auditor, were heavy enough. But then there’s the information from the whistleblowers the auditors couldn’t have caught, and the socio-cultural Mormon factor that no one dares identify, and the problems waiting to be caught in the 2010-2011 audit, and the steamroller plans that keep going forward as if Scot Townsend and Kenny Walker were still here (which, of course, they are, even if they’re not employed by the city any longer.) It’s as if you walked into your utility room and found that three other large families had been throwing their dirty laundry there for months, and they’re off playing golf. There’s barely room in the room to stand, much less to sort...

But standing there with my dirty laundry in my arms, I had a sudden sense of relief. I know what to do with dirty laundry: wash it, dry it, iron if necessary, fold or hang and then put it away. One load at a time. I can handle this situation. We all can handle this situation. It’s straight from Housecleaning 101. Sort. Wash in the proper temperature with the right detergent. Dry as recommended. Most important, put the clothes away where they won’t get dirty before you use them again.

I like the thought of our current council members tucked away somewhere, pressed and folded, saved for some other occasion than running our town. Don’t you?