Yes, I am randomly sitting in the laundry room in the basement of a dorm 500 feet away from where I’ve started to call home. In this room there are a million washers and driers, there are enough abandoned socks to make a quilt for a family of nineteen, and fans that are supposed to keep this room fairly manageable. The fans only keep the room cool enough for us not to fry like an egg on the blacktop. The best part of the laundry room is the people watching. My favorite people to watch are men because most of the men cannot work these machines. And it is absolutely hilarious to watch them try to figure out where the soap goes. (Hint! Its in the drawer, the one that has a sticker of soap on it). Today I think I will share some stories about the laundry room.
You can tell when people are, what I like to call, “laundry virgins”. First off, they have the deer in the headlights look when they walk in the door to meet the 400 washers and driers in this building. You can see the thoughts shooting through their heads; ‘wait, which one did my mom say to use first?’, ‘how much soap do I use’, ‘I need soap?’, ‘thats a lot of socks’, ‘who do I ask for help?’, and my favorite, ‘she’s a girl, I wonder how much I have to pay her to do my laundry’.
Then, after they see how much clothing they have, and how much space is in the washer, these thoughts come up; ‘I think these machines are too small’, ‘are these the girl’s machines?’ ‘I think my mom said something about separating’, ‘Maybe I should split this up somehow’, and ‘I wonder how much I can pay her to do this.’ At this time they make one of two choices, cram as much as they can into one washing machine, or separate their laundry.
What separating laundry is for women, and what separating laundry is for men, are two totally different things. Women usually separate each load by colors, and whether they are delicate or regular. I’ve seen men separate their laundry by sports teams, by tops and bottoms, by first three colors of the rainbow and last three colors, by winter clothes and summer clothes, by clothes they wear under everything and clothes they wear over everything, and favorites and non favorites. There are more thoughts; ‘did I actually wear this?’, ‘god that smells like crap’, ‘that’s not my sock’, ‘thats not my women’s underwear’, and ‘She’d probably do all my laundry for five bucks.’
After separating laundry, comes finding where the soap goes. Lets review this. The soap, the most important part of washing your laundry, goes in the drawer with the sticker of the soap cup on it. The “laundry virgins” look everywhere. This is very hilarious because if you sit on the bench provided for students who sit and wait for their clothes, the sticker is at eye level. Once these “laundry virgins” open the drawer, their smile quickly fades into a look of sudden terror. There are three words. Bleach. Detergent. Softener. Fortunately, this information is written on the bottle of soap their mothers secretly packed. Unfortunately, no one actually reads the bottle.
At this point, the soap is poured in, and there is a stare-down between the washing machine and the man. While the washing machine is just beginning the spin cycle, the man is afraid he just paid for the wrong machine. As the man turns around to check that he paid, the washing machine takes its chance to sneakily put soap in and spin a couple of times before the man turns around. The man checks the washer, then the number sticker on his machine, and then checks to see that he paid. The machine suddenly takes its chance to dramatically spin uncontrollably as the man turns around just in time to freak out because he just managed to do the impossible. He mastered the washing machine.
The look upon the face of each “laundry virgin” is maybe the funniest look anyone will witness in his or her life. This look of pure self accomplishment is like the look one gets after they are potty trained for the first time, the first time they rode a bike, or like they just bear wrestled a 600 pound bear with one hand tied behind their back. The last few thoughts before the “laundry virgin” pulls his clean clothes out of the conquered washing machine are as follows; ‘Maybe I should wash everything in here, its so easy’, ‘I need a long nap’, ‘next time I’m mailing my clothes home’, ‘pretty sure I just shrunk this shirt’, and ‘I wonder how much I could pay her to do my laundry.”
No comments:
Post a Comment