Side Hustles

Today’s poem touches on the idea of side hustles, especially ironing.

Side Hustles

You think them folded, neat, pressed, a pile
that won’t tip, and each the same as the next, but
it’s a basket full, each button-down damp with starch,
rolled tightly, waiting for the iron to heat.
Five dollars a bushel and Mrs. Bigwig knows
how to pack that bushel the tightest. White shirts,

mostly, though some run downhill toward
whatever white fades to, which isn’t quite yellow
because this is good cotton and bleached, too.
The iron is almost hot enough, and the day
is already too hot, the screened-in porch poorly aired.
Steam rises, and the un-bundling begins.

Here a thread-worn elbow, there a lost button.
It should be: mend first, wash after, iron last.
But the girl who laundered doesn’t mend.
If she focused on the sewing, the kids
would run wild, and no matter what Mrs. Bigwig says
surely children are more important than the shirts.

You don’t hear the term Side Hustle

quite as often as you used to. The concept is to make money on the side, or in addition to, your main role or occupation. It’s an idea that may be as old as the idea of money.

And the less appealing the daily task, the more likely you can find someone to pay you to do it for them. For example, laundry.

Probably since furs were tanned and the first types of fabric were woven, there were people –mostly women — who “took in laundry,” as the saying goes. And there would have been a lot of them. Until modern washing and drying machines came along, laundry was a massive chore that involved boiling, beating, and scrubbing. Even after home laundry machines came into play, there was still the hanging, folding, ironing to be done.

My mother used to iron clothes for several large families

She was paid the rate of $5 a bushel for dress shirts. That was good money for the time. But she ironed so many shirts that when it came time to deal with her own family’s clothing, she refused to purchase items that required ironing. She said, if you need to iron it, you’re wearing the wrong things. In fact, she refused to teach me how to iron clothes. My grandmother taught me.

Today, we might think of laundry services as being free standing businesses that also handle dry cleaning. But you can still make money doing your neighbors laundry at your home. In a modern approach applied to lots of services (dog walking, ride sharing) you can connect with your clients via an app. There are several that can connect you with someone who wants their laundry done. They say it’s possible to earn between $500 and $2000 a week doing laundry in your home. However, they also quote average order prices of $40.

At $40 per client, that’s a lot of loads of other people’s laundry. So, I don’t think you’ll find me offering my services via one of these apps any time soon.