THE MYSTERIES OF LAUNDRY

"Into each life a little laundry must fall," it has been said. Whether you own your own machines or go to laundromats, laundrymats, laundramats, or laundermats (there appears to be no official spelling of the word), there is a mysterious dread of laundry that seems to be universal. Everybody I know who will talk about it speaks of the same relentless, tick-tick-tick, 5 pairs of underwear left then I got to do laundry, 4 left, 3, 2 pairs left and either I do laundry tomorrow or I got to wear That Pair- 1 pair left, then it's do laundry or buy new underwear.

I did laundry yesterday for one reason, because I ran out of underwear. And whenever my top drawer contains only one pair of underwear, it's always That Pair. I can talk about it now because after several years of owning Them, I finally set myself free by tossing Them into the trash can. Some years ago I paid good money for nice, navy blue with white trim, terrycloth men's briefs with a well-known sports brand name in white letters on the side panel. Cute. Cuddly. Looked fine in the drawer, but when you put them on they would never stay put. Either they'd ride up my butt to where I'd be always doing that awful manuever of trying to pull them down while standing in line at the post office and trying to look nonchalant, or I would suffer like someone with a zit on their nose waiting for a moment when nobody could see. Like Superman ducking into a phone booth, I would be in an office building or an elevator and suddenly have a few seconds of public privacy, look both ways, and-- Ahhh.

In their last days, these blue briefs had the even worse habit of falling down. I would always opt to wear Them rather than do laundry even when I knew the truth of what it would be like to wear Them. (oh how we forget our miseries...) And it was with my blue terrycloth briefs hanging down to my thighs under my trousers that I walked into the laundromat, pushed the stopwatch buttons on my digital watch, and discovered that it takes less than 5 minutes to find empty washers, sort darks from lights, get some quarters, dump in some soap, shut the lids and let the Speed Queens roll. 22 minutes later it took about 2-4 minutes total to roll the wheeled laundry carts over to the washers and transfer the wash to a dryer, pump in a few more quarters, and then sit back and read old Reader's Digests and free pamphlets from the Rosicrucians. Total work time: about 7 minutes. The machines do all the work. I have so many questions about laundry...

Why do we dread doing our laundry? An experienced and efficient modern person can get several loads in and out of a laundromat in slightly over an hour, 40 minutes of which is spent doing nothing. What is there to fear? Other people seeing your indelibly soiled underclothes as you quickly pull them from the machines? Feeling trapped and helpless? I wonder if there have been any official psychological or anthropological studies that indicate an underlying, universal, cross-cultural Laundry Dread. Do the Chinese or the French have a word for it? Is it a modern or an ancient phenomenon? Why are there never any laundromats with libraries, bars and carpets like everybody says they have one of in far away places like Colorado or Oregon. Why are all laundromats the same and why are they all so dreary? Surely the owners of a small town laundromat in Wisconsin has never seen all the other small-town versions in New Jersey or Maine, yet they are always the same. Is there a magazine where they get fashion ideas for formica counters and cheap paneled walls? Couldn't somebody come up with something different? What the hell did people do before there were washing machines? Can you imagine the Laundry Dread that a pioneer mother went through with 9 children and only a creek and a washboard to work with? Whoever invented the washing machine should be knighted or sainted or both. Where do the socks go? Some say that dryers are doorways to another dimension. At one point I counted 21 stray socks in my drawers. (Happily, when I moved, I found a few, and it's down to 16 now.) That's more than I have total pairs of socks. My collection dates back many years, since I never lose the stray ones. Hope springs eternal.

Is it necessary to wash your washing machine? Dryers never need to be dried.

Is there a careful and organized person somewhere who has truthfully never washed their wallet, and never turned all their white shirts and underwear pink by washing a new T-shirt amid their whites, and who has never shrunk their new wool clothes to Pygmy size? I'm pretty sure that there are actually adults who have never eaten fast food, which is as hard to believe. It would be as hard to document either claim. Any notoriety or award we might offer would surely attract liars and imposters.

Can the age of "lasers in the jungle" and men on the moon make life easier for us? Surely with central vacuuming and robots that serve drinks and self-cleaning ovens and swimming pools, at least the fabulously wealthy should have Fully-Automated Laundry Systems. In my lifetime, almost every other basic human activity has been totally changed by technology. (With the notable exception of the toilet.) I have an answer that had been rejected by "Hints from Heloise" that I'd like to pass along. What Americans need is another appliance. Why hasn't Madison Ave sold us what we clearly need. It would have to come in colors like avocado and goldenrod and be a mini washing machine you could keep on your kitchen counter that would hold 2 pairs of men's briefs or a few more pairs of women's panties. Pop in some hot tap water and a spoonful of laundry soap and off you go. Ideally the Laundry Extender would wash and dry, so the American on the go could just pop 2 pairs of underwear and socks and have the finished product ready in minutes. I'd manufacture it and get rich myself, but the amount of marketing research and development costs to make such a thing would be far beyond the scope of the small-time inventor. Maybe I should find one of those old $5 blenders from a yard sale, then build a mesh net that will hang down into the water but keep things out of the blades...

Which reminds me of one of my mottos: "The last thing I need is any more good ideas..." Oops, got to go. My digital watch says the dryer cycle is up.

(You need the blades to agitate the water.) If your feet are big, you can use one of your stray socks, since something tubelike allows you to seat the top of the blender snugly to hold the sock in place, keeping water in, and keeping the blades away from your underwear. You have to dump out the soapy water, and do a manual rinse cycle, but this beats the hell out of hand washing, believe me. If you are skilled with needle and thread you could attach a pouch of coarse mesh net to the the bottom of the sock so the water could circulate freely through the laundry but so the lid would still be watertight. If you could find stockings with garters, you could use the garter clips to clip your mesh bag.

I'm working on an accesory for your hair dryer that will use a gerbil treadmill to make a mini tumble dryer, so you don't have to hang your shorts up to dry or incinerate them trying to bake them in the oven. It might even be possible to microwave them dry. I'll report back to you with the results.

©1987 by Harvey Reid