Ironing a Shirt

I'm happy enough to wear an ironed shirt but the act of ironing itself drives me moderately crazy. This happens because I don't really know what I'm doing. When it comes to shirts, I lack all semblance of a strategy and am instead reduced to just spraying steam haphazardly and trying to smooth out noticeable wrinkles. The process is somewhat beneficial to the garments, but any onlooker worth his looking salt will notice that the shirts don't exactly look presentable.

Ironing a shirt seems like one of those basic tasks I should know how to do. Maybe especially because I love this paragraph from Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which appears on the second page of this 600 page novel:

I couldn't read anymore. I decided to iron shirts instead. Which is what I always do when I'm upset. It's an old habit. I divide the job into twelve precise stages, beginning with the collar (outer surface) and ending with the left-hand cuff. The order is always the same, and I count off each stage to myself. Otherwise, it won't come out right.

This guy seems to have a different method than Murakami's narrator, but you would be hard-pressed to argue that it's not effective.



That was strangely mesmerizing. The guy is an absolute virtuoso. I will watch anything so long as the performer or act-er is sufficiently skilled.

[Via Put This On]