Laundry

For years now I have been hauling laundry off to a laundromat or laundry room to take care of that domestic chore since I never purchased a washer and dryer. Now, this is not the lead in to a denunciation of sock eating dryers, although I do have this joke that was posted on the drier at my seminary.

"Two weeks ago I put seven pairs of black socks into the dryer. I took out six pairs of back socks and one brown sock. Last week I put six pairs of black socks into the drier. I took out five pairs of black socks and one red sock. This week I put in five pairs of black socks, one brown sock and one red sock. When I came to take them out there were no socks at all, only a note: 'Do not tamper with the laws of nature. Bring more socks.'"

Anyway, my ordeal with the laundry has been of rather different nature over the last nine years. There are two laundry rooms in the apartment complex where I live, a large one some distance away and a small one almost next to where I live. The small one has problems. All the washers and driers require that you put funds on an electronic card to make the machines work. The problem is that the only device for putting money on the card is in the other laundry room on the other side of the complex. If you want to use the small laundry room you first have to walk across the complex to put money on your card and then walk back again. Actually this has turned out not to be a serious difficulty since I never use the nearby laundry room. The washers there tend to shred my towels. It's simpler just to walk across the complex and use the large laundry room where the money machine dwells and my towels remain intact.

When I first moved here each tenant had a key to unlock the laundry room. Except my key didn't work. It took a while, but I eventually persuade the powers that be to give me a key that actually unlocked the room. After that they changed the system so that you fit your electronic card into a device which then unlocked the door–sometimes. Everyone had to develop the skill of jimmying the lock open when the device failed to work. After a time that was replaced by a deadbolt lock for which no one by select staff members had the key. The idea was that they would open the laundry room at a specified time and lock it at a specified time. Yeah, right. It was supposed to be open at 7 a.m., but it never was. So I took to waiting until 8 a.m. to start the laundry. Only now they decided that that was the perfect time for washing the floors, so even though the room is open at 8 o'clock, you can't really get in until almost half-past.

Now it should be fairly easy to put money on a card and then use the washers or dryers as needed. About six weeks ago I put my card into the money machine, put $5.00 on the card, pressed the release button (which should return the card), except my card would not come out. Undaunted, I fiddles with the card and poked around with my keys and eventually the card came out. I did the washing that day, but told the management about the problem. Of course, they did not believe me that there was something wrong. (They never believe what you tell them.) So the manager had to come out and investigate and get a card stuck herself. Ha! She put a sign on the machine that said it was out of order and went off to call the company that services the machine. The next week I came to do that laundry. The sign was off the machine, so I assumed it was fixed. I put my card into the machine and tried to put money in. It would not accept any funds. Fortunately, I had enough on my card to do the laundry, but a lady who came in after me was quite dismayed to discover that she could not add money to her card and the management could not provide an alternative. The week after that only to find that the machine had been unplugged rather than repaired. Now I had to find a laundromat somewhere.

For those of you unfamiliar with coin laundries, I can assure you that they are never located in the genteel sections of town. The one I discovered was in a plaza along with a day labor office, a tatoo parlor, and a place where people receive court-ordered anger management classes. Charming. Well, the good thing was that I was able to read several chapters of a book while doing my laundry. The next week brought more of the same. Finally, two weeks ago, the machine was fixed and all was right with the world. Except, over those few weeks of visiting the laundromat, I had forgotten how much trying to use the dryers were like playing a slot machine. You put your clothes in the dryer, pay your money (via electronic card) and magically forty-six minutes later your clothes are dry . . . or maybe not. Sometimes the dryers do not actually dry anything. One machine in particular is notorious for not working. I had forgotten this and naturally ended up with one load of wet clothes.

This week I arrived at the Las Vegas style laundry room and found that the defective dryer was (ta-da!) no, not fixed, but had a sign affixed saying it was out of order. Haha! Victory! Almost. There was only the tiniest of irregularities this time. I placed my clothes in the dryer, inserted my card, and the machine proceeded to display instructions on its little electronic panel in French rather that English. Well, that was nothing to an old hand like me. So I pressed the correct buttons in the proper order, told the machine, merci, and viola! Forty-six minutes later all my clothes were perfectly dry. Well, that's isn't quite correct. All the clothes that I removed from the dryer were perfectly dry. However, one white sock seems to have vanished entirely. Ah, well. I am no match for the laws of nature.

May the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne