The Launderette

I remember the day Rich and I bought our washer and dryer. We had just moved out of our apartment and were spending loads of time overcharging our credit cards with things that we “needed” for our new, seemingly huge house in suburbia, Metroplex. The washer and dryer were of particular importance because we had this conversation:

“So, we just bought a washer and dryer.”

“Yep.”

“That probably makes us grown-ups.”

“Uh huh. Next we’ll be talking about health insurance and goiters.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah. Cool!”

Fast forward ten years and we’ve reverted back to being college kids.. at least when it comes to doing laundry.

The English, as I may have mentioned in almost every previous post, do things differently. They, like most other Western nations, wash their clothes in a machine, but then they hang them on a line to dry, unlike the good ole modern Texas suburban way of washing and drying in two separate machines. I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time wondering about the logistics of line drying. Questions like, “How long does it take for clothes to dry?” lead to “What happens if it rains?” and then, ”If it rains, do you start the laundry over again or do you just leave it out to dry? What about mildew? Bugs? Underwear thieves? What happens if you are drying your underwear and company pops by? Do people buy underwear with this in mind? What would mine say about me?” And so on.

At first I felt some relief about having a washer/dryer combo in my kitchen (which is where they are kept in this country) because I wouldn’t have to learn the answers to the series of ridiculous questions that take my thoughts prisoner. I felt relief until I learned that my washer/dryer has about 75 thousand settings with symbols that may as well be hieroglyphics except that hieroglyphics actually use pictures that some archeologists, with much research and studying, may be able to understand; that it takes, without exaggeration, six hours to wash one small load of laundry if you actually figure out a combination – a series of poking buttons and prayer - that makes the machine work; and that drying, according to my machine, is something akin to lightly breathing upon the sopping wet clothes and then breaking for tea.

I do not have a garden or any outdoor space to dry my clothes which means that I have to string wet laundry on every surface of the house and will it not to sour. Unless I time it correctly and turn the clothes every twenty minutes or so, the clothes do, in fact, sour and I have to start over.

On one of my few and far-in-between jogs around my neighborhood, I saw a little launderette and decided to try it. I gathered together my bundles and paraded them down the street, in front of Café Rouge where people sit sipping glasses of wine and people watch, past the tiny corner Tesco where folks step over each other (with all the polite "pardons") to get their groceries, and one block further. Inside were 6 washing machines and 6 dryers: Four quid to wash, one pound twenty to dry. The washers have four options – hot, warm, cold, or delicate. They take twenty minutes to wash. Drying – hot, warm or cool – takes fifteen. I loaded, paid, and waited. I settled in and reacquainted myself with the game of Hearts on the computer, and halfway through the rinse cycle, I realized that I was enjoying myself. A lot.

I now look forward to laundry time. I get grading done as I wash. I read and play games. I think and am still for 35 minutes per visit, more time than I ever spent being still at home when I worked on other things while the machine whirred in the background. My neighbors walk by the launderette’s open door and some even smile. I’ve begun recognizing them. This is my community full of people who do normal things like laundry!

Maybe I’m nostalgic about feeling like a college kid again. Maybe I’m being overly sentimental about what it means to be here rather than to visit here. Maybe in the winter I will take all of my sappy sweet feelings back and bitch about how horrid it is to trudge all the way down to the launderette in the bitter cold to wash towels. But for now, I’ll enjoy it.

Today is laundry day!