Around our house, we have a division of labor that's common in most American families. My wife does things she's better at, like laundry, while I do things I'm not better at, like fixing faucets and killing bugs.

I don't want to actually do my laundry myself. (To be fair, I don't actually know how to do my laundry.) And for the most part, I have few complaints. Like most men, I put on clothes, they get dirty, I throw them down the laundry chute, and a few days later, they magically appear in my room, clean and folded.

But I have a number of things that shouldn't go in the dryer. My dress shirts, for instance, can last forever if they stay out of the dryer. I wear them over and over until the collar and sleeves get frayed. (Then I wear them a little bit more.) But each time they get thrown in the dryer, they shrink, just a little bit. I'll know that they've been in there because the neck will start to feel a little tight, the sleeves just a tiny bit shorter. I'll be sitting in a business meeting, take a deep breath, and suddenly feel like the Hulk, about to split my seams.

My wife denies she ever puts my shirts in the dryer, and points out that if I didn't sit there on the couch and drink beer, my shirts would still fit. This explains the body of the shirt, but does not account for the slowly shortening sleeves unless, by some chance, Molson contains human growth hormone as an ingredient.

I don't spend a lot of time figuring out what to wear. When I'm not wearing dress shirts at work, I'm usually wearing sweaters at home. I have a drawer full of sweaters that all look pretty much alike, and the minute I get home from work, I take off my suit and pull one of them from the drawer. My wife points out that I'm just like Mr. Rogers, except for the fact that he liked kids and didn't yell at people for no reason, as far as we know.

A couple weekends ago, I took all my sweaters, which were starting to get a little ripe, and put them in a pile to be washed by hand. The only one I kept out was a gray one I was wearing, my favorite one. Later that day, I looked for the sweaters and they were gone.

"You didn't put my sweaters in the wash, did you?" I asked.

My wife rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"No!" she said, in a tone that was adamant and offended, but suspiciously, and conveniently, evasive.

I looked around for my sweaters for a few minutes, but then forgot about the whole thing. For the next week or so, I just stuck with my gray sweater.

The next weekend, though, when I got my pile of magically clean, folded laundry on my dresser, I found my pile of sweaters. I held one up and my jaw dropped. The last time I saw this sweater, it was exactly my size. Now, it would be snug on Mini-Me. One by one, I went through the others. They were all the same, so tiny that it looked like I'd been shopping at Baby Gap.

I yelled for my wife using language that Mr. Rogers never, ever would use, even if he hit his thumb with a hammer.

"These sweaters went through the dryer, didn't they!"

My wife started to roll her eyes, but then saw my teeny-tiny little sweater, and stopped in mid denial. I grabbed the other sweaters to show her what she'd done, but by the time I'd turned around, she was long gone.

For the past few weeks, I've worn the gray sweater almost every day. Then, last weekend, my 12-year-old daughters were helping my wife fold laundry in the living room. One of the girls looked puzzled for a minute, then held up an item of clothing.

"Who does this belong to?" she asked.

I stared for a moment, then sighed. My favorite gray sweater was about half the size it had been when I last saw it.

"You can have it, honey," I said to my daughter. "If it doesn't fit you maybe you could put it on one of your stuffed animals."