Laundry Room - Drop your drawers here

I will never forget it you know. I was hangin' out my laundry the other day, minding my own goddamn business, when my girlfriend Clemintine leaned over the picket fence. She said to me, "Soph, how come you always know when to hang out your laundry, and don't get stuck in the rain like the rest of us do?"

I said to her, "Clemintine, it's a perfectly simple proposition. When I wake up in the morning the first thing I do is roll over and look at my boyfriend Ernie. If it's laying on the right, I know it's going to be a sunny day. If it's laying on the left, I know it's gonna rain."

Clemintine said to me, "Soph, suppose it's standing straight up in the middle?"

I said to her, "Clemintine, who the hell wants to do laundry on a day like that anyway?"

Bette Midler

Today is Wednesday. We did laundry today. What is so unusual about that? Well, in our house, laundry day is THURSDAY. My husband is a creature of habit. If we should stray from that schedule, he’s not too happy. First of all, he usually runs out of underwear. Last week I made plans to go out on Thursday.

“So, okay, I’m meeting Barb for lunch tomorrow, and then we’re going to the show. Alright with you?” I ask my husband although I really don’t care what his answer is - I’m just being polite in telling him my plans. (Since we only have one vehicle, the other person is stuck at home.)

“Uh,” Hubby says, trying to look stern, “it’s Thursday.”

“Yeah, so?” I reply, knowing full well where he’s going with this.

“We have to do laundry.”

“We can do it on Friday. No big deal.”

“But I don’t have any more underwear,” he whined.

Hey, look, who ever heard of having EXACTLY 7 pairs of underwear? Shouldn’t you at LEAST have one extra pair IN CASE OF AN ACCIDENT?

Every week we go into town to the local Laundromat and do all our laundry. We also collect our weekly mail that is sent to the local post office from our mail service. Most campgrounds have washers and dryers, but usually not enough for us to get done in one fell swoop. So, at least when we’re at this campground where we usually stay all summer, we head into town. On Thursdays. But not last week. I told my husband that if he couldn’t wait another day, that he could wash a load of whites at the campground so he could have clean underwear.

So I went out with my friend, with no guilty conscience. I didn’t think once about my husband’s dirty underwear. In fact, it didn’t cross my mind till the next morning when we were sorting the dirty laundry.

“Did you wash a load of clothes yesterday?” I asked him.

“No,” he said
.
“Well, what are you doing for underwear?”

“I’m wearing the same pair I wore yesterday.”

Ew. I sure hope he at least turned them inside out. Or that we don’t get in an accident.

Aside from the cost, I really don’t mind going to the Laundromat; it’s great to get all the wash done at the same time AND lickety-split, too. It’s true that my eyes glaze over when I slip that $5, $10, or even $20 bill in the bill changer, and listen to all those quarters rushing out. I pretend it’s a slot machine in Vegas and that I just hit it BIG. CHING CHING CHING CHING CHING! YES! I love that rush that I feel! Oh, wait, that’s right. I’m STILL in the Laundromat. Back to reality.




They now have these super-duper wash machines that take three loads at once. They are pretty reasonable, too. Only $4, whereas a single load is $2.25. Now, I’m not very good at math, but even I know that’s a good deal. Here's a picture of the mother lode. This one washes a gazillion loads at once. Ok, maybe not that many, but at least 4 or 5. It costs $9.



In a previous post I talked about some of my idiosyncrasies. I have some about the laundry, too. (surprise, surprise). It really does go against my grain to put my sheets, towels, AND whites all into one honking machine, but for the sake of saving money, I do it. When the clothes come out of these washers, they are compacted so close together and I like to shake out each particle of clothing. If my husband had his druthers, he’d just roll out the large ball and shove it into a dryer. {sigh} I have to put my hand up and say, “Wait”, which he does, while I pull each piece of wet clothing out. I separate my shirts that I need to take out of the dryer in 10 minutes, put my bras aside, etc. I tell him how many dryers to use. My husband is a VERY tolerant man. So after everything is moved to the dryers, we physically move to that section of the Laundromat. We usually have books that we’ve brought, my purse, two laundry baskets, and our mail.

So now the dryers begin to stop, one after another. We try to get Jim’s shirts out right away because he usually doesn’t take the time to iron them (unless it’s a special occasion). Again, and I know it’s me and my “hang-ups”, I have to give the shirt a brisk shake first, then make sure the sleeves are right side out, THEN I hand it to my husband. He hangs HIS shirts on hangers. He doesn’t button the shirts. THIS BOTHERS ME. Why? They’re not MY shirts. But they don’t hang straight on the hanger. I try to ignore the mess hanging there. He already knows not to fold my underwear. I was tired of him folding them inside out. I mean, c’mon, is that asking too much? I have the tagless kind of underwear (now you know) so I don’t know if he just couldn’t SEE the tag, or just didn’t care.

We have one set of sheets (for lack of space in the trailer) so we take them off the bed each week, wash them, and put them right back on. So Jim doesn’t understand what the fuss is about in folding the sheets perfectly since they are going right back on the bed. I see his point. But it BOTHERS me if we fold the sheets INSIDE OUT. We don’t fold the sheets perfect, by any means. Watch this video on how to fold a perfect sheet. She makes it look so damn easy.



Jim is pretty good at folding the towels the same way I do. I have to give him credit for that. {smile} When we’re done with all the laundry, I like to put the same kind of items in the laundry basket. I start with the sheets, the all the towels, then rugs. The other basket is for our pants, shorts, underwear, etc. You know I’m not happy if Jim should mix things up in these baskets. I know I should loosen up a little, but when you live in 400 square feet, you really try to keep things in order. And it’s hard. Really hard.

But there is comfort in doing the weekly ritual of the wash, listening to the hum of the dryers. I love the warmth of the clothes as they come out of the dryer, their fresh smell wafting up to my nose. I only wish I had a clothesline that I could hang out my laundry – nothing can replace the smell of sunshine on the sheets.