Laundry day
My load of laundry is drying in the background. Not quietly because that would be too much to hope for but on the whole a pretty easy task compared to when I was younger. My parents were always able in my memory to have a proper washing machine. That is a big tub that you filled with water and then the dangerous mangler on top which we were warned upon pain of death to never touch even when the machine was stopped. Apparently we could lose our arms up to the elbow although I’ve never met anyone who actually suffered that fate. Anyhow my mother would bring out the clothes and take them out to dry on the line where the dust from the local asphalt plant would then make them dirty again. The laundry cycle as we knew it. By the time I got to university I would take a bag of clothes across campus to the machines that were provided for a price. If you timed things properly you could get in and out before the day was over. And then I went on my own into a house with a brand new washer and dryer which cost far more than I had ever thought I would spend to get my tighty-whitey leaned. Anyhow we’re now decades down the road and the machines have not evolved all that far. I still pick up all the laundry and throw it into the big open gaw of the machine and then I push buttons randomly until the machine starts. One mystery that remains is how that little cube of soap turns into soap. I was used to the days of powder. And when the machine grinds to a stop I transfer clothes to the dryer and then I wait for another hour and then I’m done for another few days. I do not put this on a plan. I know when it is time to do laundry. Part of being an adult. I tried to imagine what it was like to live in the days when people took all their clothes to a local laundromat or to a local place that cleaned and folded your clothes and set them back with those little paper tags on them that apparently had something to do with identifying the ownership. After all all wet shirts look the same.
