Starchy, Steamy, or Tumble

Superior Performance!

Auto Clean System!

Turns off automatically--on its heel rest, on its side, or on its soleplate--and beeps to let you know it's activated!

Sounds vaguely like a space-age sports car?

Wrong, it's my newest purchase, a state of the art---iron.

It seems people fall into three camps concerning ironing:

Camp 1: Manic Laundry Mavens: If it sits still long enough, iron it! These are the folks who iron pillow cases, sheets, blue jeans and yes (my mother-in-law confessed to this once) underwear. These folks steam deliriously away, attacking wrinkles like they are the next great plague of mankind. Everything about them is crisp, crisp, crisp. You know who you are. Your shirt collars point impeccably where they should, instead of curling up at the ends like yesterday's wilted lettuce. These folks are wonderful to visit, their sheets feel like sleeping on satin clouds...Manic Laundry Mavens keep spray starch companies stock going up.

Camp 2: "Maybe I will, maybe I won't": These laundry managers iron on a whim. They are the "refuse to be pigeon-holed people". These free spirits iron favorite articles of clothing; or, not. On any given day you may find them digging furiously in the laundry pile for a clean shirt, or proudly hanging a freshly ironed dress in the closet. Good to have around when you are going to an important event, they don't mind dragging out the old ironing board at a moments notice, since they seem to iron article by article anyway.

Camp 3: "Laundry sucks the life out of me" ironing procrastinators: You see them in the early mornings when others are pulling out of the driveway heading for work: they are pushing the "on" button on the dryer to tumble their shirt one last time in a vain attempt to relax some of the wrinkles.These ironing procrastinators have the nicest, newest looking irons in the neighborhood...because they never get used.

I refuse to tell you which camp I fall into. Information like that could ruin my reputation, not to mention my relationship with my mother-in-law. Now, excuse me while I hit the "on" button one more time on my dryer. It's almost time to leave for work...