One of the chores I used to love was laundry. It was so simple! Throw some soap and dirty clothes into a washing machine, walk away. Move it to the dryer, walk away. Presto, change-o, after a little while you have a battalion of sweet-smelling, clean clothes at your disposal once again! If chores were magic tricks, this was surely one. Even when I had to hand-wash because the washer didn’t work, at least that only took 20 minutes and I could get on with my life.
These days, laundry is my least favourite chore. How could this all change? It is the most labor-intensive of all possible jobs because it involves the following:
Step 1: Drag a huge bag of heavy laundry + laundry soap down four flights of stairs and up a steep hill to the least sketchy laundromat in the neighborhood.
Step 2: Find a functioning, available industrial-size washing machine and pay $4 in quarters (bonus points if the change machine is broken and the lady yells at me for pestering her when clearly the machine works when she uses it) to wash laundry.
Step 3: Walk empty laundry bag + laundry soap down hill and up 4 flights of stairs back home*.
*: Many of you will say,
“But Meghan, why don’t you just wait at the laundromat for your clothing to get washed? Bring a book and sit there and wait. Be patient.”
To this I will shake my head knowingly. There are several
very good reasons why I do not wait for my laundry in the actual laundromat. For starters, a room full of industrial washers and dryers gets VERY HOT, like VERY VERY HOT and it’s nearly impossible to sit there comfortably and concentrate on anything except how VERY VERY VERY HOT you are. Also, laundry process takes over two hours, and they have no bathroom. Oh and yeah,
how about the time when an unsupervised toddler tried to stick his hand up my skirt? I haven’t forgotten.
Step 4: Back down 4 flights of stairs, up the hill, $2 in quarters later, but laundry in dryer for one hour on high.
Step 5: Down the hill, up four flights of stairs, rest (or shower) for an hour.
Just a reminder, I live in a fourth-story walk up:
Not Shown: The flight of stairs to get INTO the building.
Step 6: Down four flights of stairs (tired of reading that yet? Imagine DOING IT), up the hill and bend over a hot dryer to retrieve laundry. Receive angry looks from laundromat staff. Smile and brush it off.
Step 7: Down the hill and up four flights of stairs with huge heavy laundry bag.
Step 8: Folding, hanging, and the only step involved in regular laundry which I usually can’t be bothered to do so it all sits on my couch and takes a nap with me while I recover from all that cardio:
Glamorous.
Today I woke up early to get the laundry started at 9. I brought this mess home at noon. And would you believe it’s still sitting there in all its glory at 2pm? Believe it.
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