Favourite thing

Today’s Daily Prompt invites bloggers to toot their own horn. We have been invited to write about our favourite thing about ourselves, given our normal excellence at self-deprecation.

Oooh! Online group therapy!

Forget it!

I much prefer being self-deprecating, as much as it annoys one of my favourite cousins. It is a reflex action ingrained by parental indoctrination. Every time as children when we “blew our own trumpets”, we would be asked if we would like the windows opened so that we could thrust out our chests.

Now, while I have managed to quash a goodly number of those learned behaviours, I still have a problem on occasion with the fluffing out of my feathers.  Spreading my wings and flying presents no problem; fluffing out the feathers is a bit of a tall order.

So instead, I will tell you what I am good at.

STACKING. I am good at stacking.

Yes, I have photographic proof. In September 2009, I was still working in the laundry. From what I can gather, it had been the busiest summer ever at this particular establishment. These three were taken at the end of my shift at the end of the week (Saturday). All stacked bags (each weighing at around 15 kilograms) were stacked by me alone.

I did this every day, by the way. Bags of laundry just kept coming in, and I just kept sorting them into deadline order, and stacking them.

Then of course, there was the washing and drying.

Then the folding, or ironing and folding, and the making of more piles and piles, seen on the table on the right in the picture below.

After the ironed and folded – or just folded – stuff had cooled down, it had to be packed into clear plastic bags. I am a good packer too, by the way.

Then, the packs had to be stacked. We were slightly short of space. Just as well I was a good stacker, then, wasn’t it? This lot is ready for the customers to collect:

By this time, everything is neatly labelled too! I see now that an unironed curtain or two have been draped over a miniature stack on the floor. Where to put it, if not on top of a stack?

You are probably tired of pictures of other people’s laundry. I know the feeling!

So, I shall tell you that I also like the fact that I am tall and I love gardening, and standing in the midst of sunflowers, grown for no reason, except to stand in the middle of them one day.

I had a bumper tomato crop that year (2007), by the way. I am good at digging, and lugging bags of horse and pig manure, too.

I am also good at stacking dishes, books, papers, T-shirts, jerseys, and even words, one on top of the other. I like the fact that I am generally a hard worker, too.

Yes, if you’re looking for a good stacker, I’m your gal.

But actually, the thing that I like most about myself is that although I am a good stacker, I am a better translator, and that I love the work entailed in creating something that makes people feel as if they are standing in the middle of a patch of sunflowers on a sunny day, just for the fun of it.

Allison