Here’s another piece from 2004. We still use the Seriously Nice Equadorian Laundry. This week, like the week this piece was written, was one of those weeks when we had to beg Hepcat to bring the laundry over there because as Teen Spirit said, "I don’t have any clean jeans." Some things never change.

Smartmom and family finally had clean clothing today.

That sentence was not intended as a jab at Hepcat, whose job it is to take the laundry bag to THE SERIOUSLY NICE EQUADORIAN LAUNDRY on Sixth Avenue and Fifth Street. But it is a fact that the family was without their favorite clothing for too long.

You’re probably wondering why Smartmom and Hepcat don’t just do their own laundry in the laundry room in the basement of their apartment building, where there are plenty of perfectly functional coin-operated washing machines and dryers. And that, dear reader, would be an excellent question.

It all started back in ’91 when Teen Spirit was born. Smartmom worked full-time in Manhattan as a video producer. She would leave the apartment early in the morning and return after 7 p.m. It could be said that Smartmom never really mastered the work/family conumdrum. She loved her work (and her young family needed the income AND her health insurance plan). But she was miserable about the time away from her beautiful child. Laundry was one of the first household chores to go for two reasons: Smart Mama was exhausted and the time was better spent cherishing the bebe.

After the birth of OSFO in ’97, Smartmom switched to a more family-friendly career as a freelance writer with an office in Brooklyn.  But Smartmom was still loyal to THE SERIOUSLY NICE EQUADORIAN LAUNDRY, the very one immortalized in "Knuffle Bunny" a children’s book by Brookyn writer and cartoonist Mo Willems. Sending it there was a tough habit to break.

Y’know. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Every week, Smartmom, Hepcat, Teen Spirit, and OSFO fill the rattan hamper with their dirty clothes. Then, Hepcat stuffs the red laundry bag and takes it to the laundry. Ages ago, Hepcat christened the bag, The Laundry Baby, because he used to roll the thirty-pounder in OSFO’s McClaren stroller. But ever since the stroller broke more than three years ago, Hepcat has carried The Laundry Baby the two-and-a-half blocks looking like Atlas with the world on his back.

Over at THE SERIOUSLY NICE EQUADORIAN LAUNDRY, the family’s clothing is washed, cleaned, and FOLDED. And the fact that it is FOLDED is probably why Smartmom is so passionately devoted. That and the fact that the seriously nice Equadoiran family who own the place are like family now and the woman calls at 9 p.m. to say, "Laundry. Your husband, send him over to get laundry."

And while this has been the family’s laundry routine for the past 13 years, sometimes the process gets snagged. Smartmom tries not to be unpleasant, but often she has to, well, encourage Hepcat to carry The Laundry Baby to the laundry and back again. .

Sad to say, this week was one of those, "Will you please bring The Laundry Baby over to the laundry, already!" weeks. And finally, finally, Hepcat to around to doing it. And for that everyone was grateful.