Sunday, February 18, 2007

Letting it all hang out


Colored grey
Originally uploaded by ido1.

There was a minor crisis in my apartment building the night before I went to Boston. It turned out that both washing machines in the basement were declared out of order (one full of dirty laundry and sudsy water), and there was no power of any kind getting to the laundry room. I looked from the broken machines, to the two sackfuls of dirty laundry I had to do, and wondered how I was going to survive in Boston without clean clothes.

So I placed a 911 call to Dr G and next thing I knew, I was having delicious Thai take-out at her place, while my laundry went round and round in her machine. Saved.

So I had some hesitation going down to my laundry room again yesterday. Over a week has passed since I found the broken machines, so I figured that would have been plenty of time for a technician to do his thing. And even though I had two loads of laundry to do, on entering the basement I realised only 1 machine was operational. But it was available, so I jammed all my clothes into the one load (please remember that up until this point, I had indeed separated colours from whites) and set it going.

And thus began the 4-hour washing marathon. I was unstoppable. Bed linens, towels, clothes - it all got washed yesterday. And that one functioning machine got such a workout, it was amazing.

And there were only 2 casualties from the whole process. I lost one sock (from a pair I actually like), and my favourite black bra got inadvertently thrust into the dryer and one of its little hook thingies got melted. Sniff. I guess that's what you get for washing and drying like a mad thing.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

i always remember barbra streisand's comment in 'the owl and the pussycat' that, inter alia, in laundromats u always wash your clothes with other peoples pubic hair.

but, it never seems to occur to me when i use the same washing machine as family or friends.

Unknown said...

I had that consideration when I found out that Pete from the mail room used to take home all the office tea towels and Dodgey told me he'd be washing them with his jocks .... collective eeeeeww

Anonymous said...

Now you guys really are starting to freak me out ....... hasn't any one heard of shaving/waxing/generally being neat and trim????

Anonymous said...

Any CSI viewer can attest to the fact that people tend to shed all manner of things - mucus, skin, hair and various other body fluid secretions.

So along with your added Fab, Rinso or BioZet you also have a cocktail of body 'exotica' lurking in the bowels of the washing machine lint filter waiting for the next load.

Happy washing.. :)

Unknown said...

Oh great, so a melted bra hook and a missing sock are now the least of my problems. I will be giving the death glare to all the residents of this building from now on. (shudder)