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As I've probably mentioned before, of all household chores the one I hate the most is ironing.

I guess it has something to do with the fact that when I was growing up, all of "us children" had to divide the chores. There's nothing wrong with that, of course; those duties instilled a sense of responsibility and the value of hard work.

The thing is, the ironing was the longest chore of them all (other than vacuuming maybe, which of course I was always happy to do). A family of seven generated a lot of laundry. Back in those days, just about everything other than "unmentionables" had to be ironed.

The hapless child whose turn it was to iron would lug out the heavy metal ironing board and G.E. Steam Iron, set it up in the family room, and iron away while watching TV. But you had to be careful -- the steam from the hissing iron could inflict a nasty burn on wayward fingers or an arm.

Anyway, as I said, I do still hate to iron and will do just about anything to avoid it. When I need to wear dress clothes, I usually hang them up in the shower to give them a good steaming. "Close enough for jazz" as they say.

I used to have an old clothes steamer but gave it away when we moved. It was really not all that powerful and took too long to work.

Then the other day, a friend gave me a brand-new, rather expensive Jiffy commercial-grade steamer! I fired this baby up today and, boy, look at it go! The dress shirt I steamed on its maiden voyage was neatly pressed in about a minute.

The only drawback is that it takes about 15 minutes to warm up. So the trick will be to steam a batch of clothes just after washing them -- doing a bunch at a time.

I figured out that all three sections of tubing aren't necessary unless you're doing long dresses or gowns (not likely here at Casa Electrolux hahaha!), so I removed one section. Now the clothes are lower and easier to reach.

Those who like starched clothes (I do not) can use spray starch on steamed garments.

O Happy Day!