Harvesting Honeydos

Misuse of the word "we" has a long history in the English language. Within popular discourse, it is most frequently identified in "the royal We," as in the Elizabethan "We are not amused." However the abuse of this communal pronoun has trickled down from the aristocracy to the conversation of the commoner. Here's one recent example of this grammar-gone-wrong from our life together. Sara said to me one day, while we stood in our oversized bathroom-slash-laundry room, "We should put up clotheslines in here, so that we can hang our cloth diapers to dry in the winter, and not use so much propane in the dryer."

And by "we should put up clotheslines," she meant "you should put up clotheslines." Where's my seventh-grade English teacher when I need backup?

So I set about the honey-do--for I thought in spite of the pronoun abuse it was a grand idea--to invent a clothesline system that would maximize our use of space in the bathroom.

I reclaimed some hardwood plywood for wall mounts:

I measured the area over our washer and dryer and in front of the boiler. . .

. . . and, because babies go through a lot of diapers, over the sink, too:

I put in the wall mounts, with pegs that will allow us to remove the lines easily:

I measured and drilled the braces that will anchor the lines:

Then I hung the lies on the braces:

And now we're ready to hang dry at any time of year!

Here's less than half a load of baby laundry. These lines will be getting their workout:

Now we're one step more energy efficient; and we don't have to buy drapes for the bathroom.

After finishing "our" project, I have observed that Sara's second use of the first person plural pronoun--"so that we can hang diapers to dry"--was no grammatical error.

Strange that.

~emrys