Monday, March 4, 2013

Laundromat Musings

Washing and drying clothes at a laundromat involves a whole set of skills, that many may not be aware they might need.  Take a couple loads of laundry to the local laundromat when you've never been to one and it will become apparent that it isn't as simple a process as it might look.  Not to be gender biased, but if you're a man standing around waiting for someone to feel sorry for you and tell you what to do, you might get some sympathizers, you might not.  A lot of the women that are going to the laundromat may have children or grandchildren with them , as well as having hauled on heavy loads of wet and dirty clothes and don't see this endeavor as an opportunity to assist the clueless male on how to do his laundry.

Hopefully, the male in question, had a parent who taught him the basics of laundry when he was growing up and he will not be as clueless as originally conjectured to be.  Note, I was once asked to sniff and smell a man's newly laundered pair of pants to see if it still had a burning smell left from the fire he had his house recently.  I asked myself internally, "Is he serious?" but I played along and did as he asked.  I couldn't smell any burning smell, and there might have been a slight odor of kerosene, but I'm not the best person to ask, because my sense of smell is practically nonexistent, except after a superb night's rest, which can happen very rarely.

This was going on as two young children were rolling the laundry carts back and forth and coasting on them as entertainment, while their harried grandmother finished drying some bedding she had washed.  One sincerely enjoys silence after an experience like this, believe me.

Using the same laundromat all the time, one gets acclimated to which washing machines and dryers are the better ones.  One learns the washer that sounds like it will launch into orbit when it is spin drying or the dryer that will leave one with a mass of wet clothes after an hour of drying on the highest setting.  On the opposite side of things, are the washers that don't spin dry at all and leave sodden clothes and the dryers that may melt  the polyester shirt back to its roots as a  product of crude oil.

Who would have known the adventures that await at the local laundromat?



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