Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Public Laundry

I hate doing my laundry in a laundromat. The only positive thing is that it takes a shorter time because I can do more loads at once.

Yesterday was our laundry day. And boy did we have a lot. It was about 11 in the morning, and I took our huge bag down to the laundromat. One of the washers is out of order, and then they have four others, one of which is an older model front loader. Someone wasn't very smart and put the laundry soap in the wrong place, and so it's kind of yucky. So, I really only have 3 washers to use. Two were being used when I first went in. One of them wasn't, but I wanted to use all 3 at the same time, not do one load at a time. So, I waited. I kept checking back. by 3 that afternoon, those two washers STILL had the clothes in them. I was done. I went up to the front desk and made sure I could take out their clothes. They gave me a small hamper, and took out their stuff. I mean, come on. You're using a hotel laundry room, and you're dumb enough to leave your stuff there for FOUR hours?? I did our four huge loads, and was completely done by five. They still had not come down to take care of their things. Could not believe it!!

In Germany, we had laundry in the basement. It was a first come first serve thing. We didn't have to pay, they were just there for our use. Sometimes I would forget that I had clothes down there and people would put it in the dryer. I hated that, because sometimes I had clothes that weren't supposed to be dried. Of course I should have gotten myself down there, but it wasn't always that easy. It was yucky down there and Andrew was little. I didn't want him wandering around down there picking up yucky stuff.

I just hate public laundry. When we moved to San Antonio, we obviously did not own a washer or a dryer. By the time we moved into our house, we were low on funds. We had just spent the last 9 weeks in hotels or visiting family and friends. Matt found this place that sold refurbished washers and dryers. So we bought from them. They looked just like the ones that my parents had when I was a kid. But they worked!! As we were packing up our trailer a few weeks ago, we decided not to take our washer and dryer. They would have taken up too much space. We found someone in the ward that needed them, and they almost ran over to get them. And they took our rocking chair because that wouldn't fit either. OK, it would have fit, but we would have gone over our 19 feet, and we didn't want that. So again, we are without things to wash our clothes. Matt loves to research this kind of stuff, so he has spent a lot of time online looking at all kinds of washers and dryers. We ended up with a new front loader. Matt found it on ebay, and it was the best deal he could find. We won't be giving this one away!! I have to say, that I'm excited for it. We'll be using less water for washing our clothes. We don't have to pay for water, but I'll feel better about it. And it will take less time to dry our clothes because the washer will spin it so well, they will be almost dry when they get out.

Only one more week of public laundry. Thank goodness!!!

5 comments:

Shelly! said...

While I am not jealous of your public laundry experience (which I can all too sadly relate to) I am totally jealous of the front loader. Man, really jealous. Spitting mad jealous.

Not only would that be an awesome piece of household equipment to have but it would serve as a wonderful babysitter for Will. Can you imagine!?!?

TJ said...

i'm looking forward to having it be one for my kids too. and matt made the decision, not me. so, yay matt!! you know, come and visit and you can sit and watch it too.....

steve-o said...

I had no idea front-loaders were so entertaining. I'll have to spend some time in front of mine for a while.

From an ease-of-use perspective, I'd much rather have a top-loader. I hate all the bending over to get the laundry out. Mommy's top-loader was so much easier to use.

TJ said...

thats why you get the stand for them so that you don't have to bend over. our stands are actually drawers that i can put stuff in.

steve-o said...

Can't get a stand. A shelf was built over where they go, so we're out of luck. The shelf is nice for folding clothes, though.

I feel so domestic right now.