The dirty cost of doing laundry

As I write this, I’m sitting in my Carrboro house on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Birds are chirping, children are playing and the mailwoman whistles on her day off … yet I am tres miserable.

For the next two hours, I am doomed to the fate of a Prisoner of Laundry (POL).

The POL cannot enjoy life’s wonders because he remains trapped inside his own home, folding clothes and matching socks while dying on the inside.

Today we’ll examine, in economic terms, why laundry is an awful hobby, and how to reduce the laundry loads in our lives.

Here’s the salient reason why laundry is the devil’s work: the chore carries a very high opportunity cost.

Opportunity cost, in economic terms, means all the options that you must give up when you make a choice. So every Sunday when I choose (a.k.a. am forced) to do laundry, my opportunity cost equals whatever I cannot do because I am doing laundry.

Laundry requires me to stay in my house for two hours while the machines run, then fold clothes for a quarter hour.

The ensuing limited mobility and time commitment means a high opportunity cost: In lieu of doing laundry, I could drive to the beach, learn to tie a tie using YouTube or whip up chocolate mousse. What do you give up to do laundry?

Don’t throw away your washing machine just yet, as there’s a quick fix to this laundry quandary.

We would all be better off having to do less laundry, because then we’d have more free time for worthwhile pursuits (like eating chocolate mousse). And yet there’s a reason why we do laundry: It provides personal and societal benefits.

Can you imagine a world without laundry? The collective odors and dirt would be a major drag on our happiness.

Laundry helps us appear clean and put-together, qualities which attract (or at least don’t repel) potential friends, sexual partners and employers. So eliminating laundry is not an option — but can we do less laundry and retain its benefits?

Here’s an answer: purchase myriad pairs of socks and underwear. These goods are the key to doing less laundry, because they represent production constraints.

Production constraints, in economic terms, are the minimum required materials for a business to make a product. Every morning, we are in the “business” of dressing in clean clothes to achieve the “product” of good hygiene.

It’s a well-kept secret that we can often wear the same tops more than once before they become dirty; jeans can be worn for days without wear.

Not so with underwear and socks, which can only be donned once before getting “gross” and in need of laundering. In this sense, we are forced to do laundry every time our clean socks-and-underwear supply runs out.

I plan to free my future Sundays by buying an army-load of socks and briefs.