no furlough,a sleeping kitten and laundry

My son will not be on furlough this weekend. I do not think he will qualify for next either. A week ago I would have felt disappointed. After Monday’s meeting and Wednesday’s visit, I am relieved. So are the kids.
How sad is that.
I think I forgot to mention we have the kitten back. He is currently curled up in my lap,sound asleep. There is nothing more comforting than a sleeping kitten in the lap.
My thirteen year old has just taken on washing his own laundry. What this means in reality is he often wears the exact same clothes for days on end. He is used to me handing him clean clothes every day. This has been a bit of a transition for him. His brother has been doing his own laundry for a few years now. I always know when he is running out of clean clothes. He starts to wear his brown tee shirts with shorts. He only wears shorts as a last resort. I can even tell you what order he will wear his shorts until he does laundry. He owns 6 brown tee shirts,so he can wear quite a few before he goes naked. On his laundry day he will wear old gray shorts with an orange stripe. They once were long pants, but he unzipped the lower legs years ago. He has owned these shorts since he was twelve, and yes, they are too small.
This afternoon I reminded the thirteen year old (who has been wearing the same tee shirt for three days now) we would be out and about tomorrow for the forth. I also reminded him he cannot be in public in dirty or ratty clothes. This includes the tee shirts whose necks he has stretched out so his skinny chest shows.
“I know mom” he replied cheerfully.
Five minutes later, both he and his brother (wearing the camo shorts with a brown tee shirt) came down stairs carrying about four loads of dirty laundry between them. I’m glad I said something.
My daughter does her laundry-but only part of it at a time. She hides the rest in her closet. Now that she is working,she has been know to buy more clothes and delay washing the dirty ones.
My grown son and his wife have all the rest beat.
When we moved north they brought over twelve, thirty gallon garbage bags overflowing with dirty clothes. Twelve. The young couple had innocently asked to use my washer to “get caught up on laundry”. They did two loads and then vanished for two weeks. My son knew it would drive me crazy having all that laundry in my basement and I would eventually wash it. He was right. I did. I’m a sap.
My son and daughter in law,were childless college students at the time. Whenever they ran out of clothes,they bought new.
They were thrifty,however. Most of their jeans and sweaters were from Goodwill.