The Pressing Situation

Life becomes complicated when simple things go wrong. However, simplicity in itself is relative; the levels of which is defined by the abilities and the inclination of a person. A simple task for a particular person could turn out to be excrutiatingly painful for someone else. One such task which I have disliked my whole life, and made every effort to avoid has been "Pressing" - ironing my clothes. Thanks to my leap into the corporate world, I am condemned to devote every sunday evening doing this menial task.

I fail to understand how the idea of ironing one's clothes came into being. The human body is not perfectly flat, our actions are never planar or in straight lines. Under these circumstances it is but natural that our clothes would develop wrinkles and there is no point ironing it out, even though it might last for a few minutes. This is how, I believe, Ironing came into existence - Our ancestors were going out to a wedding ceremony, when they got drenched in a downpour. The easiest way of drying the clothes were to heat them, but in a way that they wouldn't get burnt. They tried throwing hot coal on it to take away the heat, but that soiled the clothes. Then someone came up with the brilliant idea of concealing the hot coal inside a metal box and drying the clothes. And Lo !! The first iron boxes came into existence.

Growing up as a pampered kid, my dad used to iron the clothes for me. Till I graduated from high school, I never had to touch the wicked ferrous box. Though I made efforts to learn the trait, I instantly detested it and stayed away from it. Undergrad life in IIT made life very convenient. I was surrounded by people who would wash their clothes once a semester - the probability of someone ironing their clothes under these circumstances were the same as that of snow in Madras. Thus I survived 3 careless years of "No more Pressing", until the fateful day of my job interview. With less than an hour left for the interview I took the risk of applying my amateurish skills to a brand new shirt - alas, I only succeeded in burning a big hole in it. After much coercion, I suckered my friend into ironing one of his shirts and lending it to me. Fortunately, I bagged the first job interview that I appeared in, and never had to bother about "pressing" for another year.

When I came over to Pennsylvania, the weather stayed cold for most part of the year, and sweat shirts & jeans made sure I never had to struggle with this wicked gadget. But thanks to a flood of job interviews, and some unco-operative roomates, my joy was short lived. However, I wiggled my way out by wearing a blazer to all the interviews. At lunch/dinner interviews when the interviewers removed their blazers, I stubbornly stuck to them, lest they see my crumpled shirt. Ignorant of my real concerns, they assumed it to be an act of reverence !

But over the past 3 months there has been no respite from this chore. I have tried to live smart by buying "wrinkle-free" shirts and thick cotton shirts. Unfortunately, the "wrinkle-free"s are the first to develop the creases - I wonder whether "wrinkle-free" actually means that you get wrinkles free of cost with the shirt. The other day, my boss saw a rather creased shirt and remarked, "Hey, Arun, you are wearing a new shirt !". Since the shirt was not new, I asked him why he said that. He replied, " When you remove all the pins and cardboard from the new shirt, they develop creases like this." I replied, " Yeah I bought it last weekend.". Little did he know, that the shirt was more than 3 months old and I had worn it more than a couple of times to work.

As I spend time devising a new scheme to outwit this evil, I have only one thing to say to my "iron box" - "RIP - Rust In Peace".