Tomato, to-mah-to ...

Even before we were married, husband and I disagreed about one important aspect of life together. It seemed that every few days, we'd have cause to drag out the old argument again and go head-to-head. There never was a clear winner. We tried compromise, only to find there was no middle ground. We enlisted the advice of other married friends, to discover that our polling left us no closer to a solution. We even tried NOT dealing with the issue-at-hand at all, but that just led to a huge mess.

I'm talking about the all-important, earth-shattering, is-this-gonna-be-a-deal-breaker-or-what issue of ... how to fold T-shirts.

Husband favors a complicated fold I call the double-trifold. You hold the T-shirt by the shoulders so that it's facing you, then you fold both sleeves behind the center of the shirt. THEN you tuck the neckline under your chin and do a quick scoop-up twice. You know, the Gap fold.

I fold shirts the way I was raised to fold shirts. (This is also known as "the right way.") I start with the T-shirt held up by the shoulders (but facing AWAY from me), then fold down the center line so that the sleeves meet up and are "stacked." Then I tuck the sleeves under, and fold up the shirt once from the bottom. 

I'll admit that the Gap fold has one advantage -- when you glance into your drawer, you know just which of your old T-shirts is on top, because the front panel is clearly visible. I get the plus, there. But that's where the pros end. Because the Gap fold makes your shirts extremely thick in your dresser drawer, so that you can stack fewer of them in a "column" in your armoire. 

MY method is clearly superior because not only can you see a full quarter of your shirt's front (which is more than enough to tell which shirt it is, especially when you consider that you're probably only folding cheap, old shirts anyway, so what does it matter?), your folded shirt also only has four shirt-layers to it, six if you count sleeves. (The Gap fold yields an astounding NINE, including sleeves.) So you can get more of your old giveaway blood-drive/college/March of Dimes T-shirts into your drawers. 

When we got married and I took over laundry duty (because I'm the one who will actually listen for the chime and transfer stuff from the washer to the dryer, thereby avoiding the cooked-in hard creases that result from forgotten wet clothes sitting overnight in a humid, icky machine), I made a sincere attempt to live with the Gap fold. I figured, Hey, we're married now. I can give in a little. I can extend the olive branch. I can show flexibility and maturity and adaptability. How bad can it be? So I sorted and washed and dried and fabric-softened the cheapies, and folded them carefully into the nine-layered behemoths that they were, and packed them into husband's dresser drawers. I did the hell out of that Gap fold for two years. 

Then we had a baby. And things got a lot more crazy. And now? I fold the T-shirts however I damn well please. Which is The Right Way.

Husband hasn't said a word. He either 1) hasn't noticed, 2) is more mature than I am, and has let it go, or 3) is plotting to get back at me in some other diabolical way, just when I've decided he's over it. *

Hmmm. 

Remind me to check to make sure the toilet isn't Saran-wrapped the next few times I use it.

* Update: Husband claims he's been quietly refolding the shirts his way before putting them in their drawers, and has just been choosing not to make an issue of it. 

He's a smart man.