Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Laundry Pick-Up Sticks - The Rules

I don't like folding laundry.  I especially do not like matching socks.

So, to make this chore more fun and interesting, I made up a game.  I call it Laundry Pick-Up Sticks.  It's like the traditional game of pick-up-sticks... with a few adjustments.
This could even be a good way to teach your children how to fold laundry.
You can play alone or with family members.  The more laundry you have, the better the game is.
Here are the rules:

Object of the Game
Collect and fold all of your laundry leaving the fewest pieces of clothing unclaimed.

General Rules of Play
Clothing must be drawn from the pile in a manner that causes the least amount of movement to the rest of the pile although some shifting is expected.  At no point may a player move clothes to gain access to or site of other laundry pieces.
While incidental touching is expected, players may only grip laundry items that they intend to claim and fold.  Once a piece is gripped, it is considered to have been claimed and play must continue with this piece.
Players are encouraged to maneuver around the pile to look for more pieces of clothing from any other angle.


For Two or More Players
Dump your clean, dry laundry onto a flat surface accessible to all players.  The person who is thought to have the most items of laundry in the pile draws first.  S/He chooses any item of clothing that belongs to him/her.  After drawing, player must properly fold the clothing before drawing again. Player keeps drawing until one of two things happens:

Scenario 1) Player believes s/he has pulled from the pile all articles of clothing that belong to him/her.  At this point, this player will pull no more laundry from the pile for the remainder of the game even if more of his/her articles of laundry are revealed as play continues.  Play shifts to player who has the most amount of laundry left in the pile.

Scenario 2)  Player accidentally pulls a piece of laundry that does not belong to him/her.  Player remains in the game; however, play shifts to the owner of the last piece of laundry pulled. 

Play continues until all clothing is claimed and folded, or until the only articles of clothing left in the pile belong to players who opted out in the first scenario.

Scoring:
Each player adds one point for each article of clothing left in the pile that belongs to him/her.
The player with the least points wins!
The player with the most points must properly fold the remaining laundry and distribute it to the appropriate players.
In the case of a tie, the player who has the neatest pile of folded laundry (voted by the other players) wins.  If there are only two players, and both insist they have the neater pile of folded laundry, both win for having all of their laundry neatly folded.

For One Player with Multiple Family Members:
Dump your clean, dry laundry onto a flat surface.  Draw a piece of clothing that belongs to the person who has the most items of laundry in the pile.  Fold it.  Continue to draw this person's items and folding them until one of two things happens:

Scenario 1)  You believe you have pulled from the pile all the articles of clothing that belong to the person you've been drawing for.  You will pull no more laundry for this person for the remainder of the game even if more of this person's laundry is revealed as play continues.

Scenario 2)  You accidentally pull a piece of laundry that belongs to a different family member.  At this point, play shifts to items owned by the owner of the last piece of laundry pulled.

Continue drawing and folding clothing until all clothing is folded or until the only articles of clothing left in the pile belong to family members who were eliminated in Scenario 1.

Scoring:
You get one point for each article of clothing left in the pile.
0-3 points:  Domestic Engineer!
4-6 points: You're one sock short of a pair.
7 points or more: Desperate Housewife

For One Player Households:
Dump your clean, dry laundry onto a flat surface.  Draw any article of clothing.  Fold it.  Continue to draw and fold articles of clothing in this category (ie. socks, underwear, t-shirts) until one of two things happens:

Scenario 1)  You believe you have pulled from the pile all the articles of clothing in this category.  You will pull no more laundry in this category for the remainder of the game even if more items in this category are revealed as play continues.  Choose any new category to continue play.

Scenario 2)  You accidentally pull a piece of laundry that belongs to a different category.  Play shifts to this new category.

Continue drawing and folding clothing until all clothing is folded or until the only articles of clothing left in the pile belong to a category eliminated in Scenario 1.

Scoring:
See above.

Alternate rules:

- Require players to claim all socks before pulling any other articles out of the pile.
- Award negative points for any "community" laundry pulled and folded.  For example, fold a bath towel/wash cloth shared by the family or an article of laundry that belongs to an absent player, and you can remove one point from your final score. This is a good strategy to use when player can no longer see any of his/her laundry, but knows there is some left in the pile.  Using this play ends the player's turn, and play continues with the player with the most laundry left in the pile.



***

For households with small loads of laundry, leave the laundry in the basket.  Play by drawing from the basket.
Feel free to create "family rules".

2 comments:

DogsDontPurr said...

If you really want to make this game fun, you'll come over to my house and fold all MY laundry. Ha!

Roses said...

I would do that, DDP, but you'd have to play, too. ;-)