Our friend Naomi, the one who made this painting and then we never heard from again because she moved to Australia (no really, she literally moved to Australia) always said that the curse of Chava is not what it seems. (She's a rebbetzin, so that would make this is an actual dvar torah that you can use to impress people) You see, the curse of Chava is not the actual labor of having a baby - it's the labor that comes after. Namely, all the laundry that said baby generates. Because if you think about it, laundry never ever ends. It can't. Unless the entire family is walking around totally naked, there are no sheets on any of the beds and all the bathrooms are in a sorry state of towelessness, the laundry will never be finished. Not even after you do five loads in one day, fold it and put it away. Because, lucky you, when everyone comes home, there will once again be a huge pile. And if it's in an actual pile, then you really are lucky. That never happens in my house. I find people in my family by following the trail of clothes.
1. the collecting of
2. the getting it downstairs
3. the switching the load
4. the getting it back upstairs
5. the folding of
6. and the putting away of
So you see, we have many many problems and not many many solutions - because if we had those, we wouldn't have the problems. Laundry is like life, it's all cyclical. And for a bonus dvar torah, the gematria of laundry (lamed, nun, daled, reish, yud) which is 294 is equal to the gematria of Azarya (ayin, zayin, reish, yud, hey) which means Hashem helps. Well, it almost equals 294. Azarya actually equals 293, but that's okay cause you can add one for Hashem and you're golden. Because without Hashem's help the laundry would never get done. Deep, I know.
So to end my story on a holy note for my fellow-laundry-doing-holy-sisters, I will throw one more weird gematria out there - the hebrew word for miracle, nes, is equal to 110. Oddly enough, the word for fold, chavak (chet, vet, kuf) is equal to the same number. So yes, getting the laundry folded is indeed a miracle. I'll be honest, I am not at all sure that the word chavak or fold is used when one would actually speak in Hebrew about laundry and its goings-on but that's okay cause I don't really speak Hebrew; I kind of feel like it might mean to fold, as to enfold someone or embrace them, but you know what, a warm sweatshirt straight from the dryer hugs you and makes you feel all warm and good, so fold, embrace, whatever, it's all laundry and I have to go do some.
* Oh come on, it's from Cats in the Cradle. You know you were humming it just now, you just had no idea why.