Recently I went to  the Home Warrior’s family reunion. While sitting around chatting with many members of his family, we somehow got on the subject of ironing. (As some of you may have realized, I am a big believer in traveling with clothes that don’t need to be ironed. There are all kinds of shirts, pants, skirts, suits, dresses, and everything else out there made of material that won’t wrinkle–take that with you instead of the linen jacket.) During the ironing conversation, my brother-in-law told a story about his traveling days that,while not my typical reason for preferring wrinkle free clothing, was a shining example of why  needing to iron can stress you out.

My brother-in-law used to have a job where he was on the road a good percentage of the time.  He tried to bring clothes that didn’t wrinkle, knowing that wrinkly clothes are a hassle that travelers don’t need. One time, however, he grabbed the wrong pants. When he pulled them out of his suitcase, they were so wrinkled that he knew he couldn’t go to the office the next day without ironing. After going to the front desk to borrow the one iron (don’t you just love staying in rinky-dink motels out in the middle of nowhere?) he returned to his room and started ironing. Except that his pants were made of some weird blend of poly-something and cotton and needed to be ironed on cool.  He had the iron turned all the way up, and the pants literally started to melt to the iron. By the time he realized what had happened, it was too late and there was a gaping hole in the middle of his pantleg. Needless to say, this precipitated a frantic dash to the nearest Target (which was not close by) at 9pm to get something he could wear the next day.

So the moral of the story is: bring clothes you don’t have to iron! And when you do iron, make sure you put it on the right temperature……