Laundry Day

Today is one of the most dreaded of all days in our home.  Today is Laundry Day.  Laundry Day comes about every two weeks and always on a Monday because that is my day off.  Laundry Day has no consideration for what I want to do with my day off.  It doesn't care that my car looks like a carpetbagger has taken a few train rides inside.  It doesn't care that I have not one, but three packages to put together and pop in the mail.  It doesn't care that I would really like to try out this aqua zumba class.  Instead it pops up and says "Hey.  Your husband is out of clean undershirts and if you want to go to yoga tonight and continue rediscovering how to touch your toes you need to take care of this because everything you own smells."

There is one key piece of information you need right up front to truly understand Laundry Day.  We do not own a washer or dryer.  We also live in one of those rare apartment complexes with no laundry facility.  We must then pack up all of our dirty clothes into presorted sacks and then lug them a fair distance to the closest laundromat mat.  Evidently part of "urban renewal" is the elimination of many such facilities as we must drive ten minutes to the closest one in a slightly less desirable part of town (Not that there is anything wrong with that part of town.  The reason I know where the laundromat is is that we almost moved to an apartment complex next door but we couldn't afford the units they had available).

Now I know what you are all thinking.  You have immediately started singing lines from Dr. Horrible.

Well stop.

There is nothing sexy about the laundromat.  It is dark and cramped and while clean you always come out with the slight aroma of smoke in your work clothing.  The washers never hold quite enough and the dryers never get everything quite dry.  There are only two chairs in the whole place and those are being used by small children playing video games and chattering on loudly in a language you don't understand.  The only real good thing about the laundromat is that this is one of the few that still takes quarters.  Everyone is so proud of their reloadable cards, but I prefer to carry around eight dollars in change rather than be stuck with a perpetual fifteen cents on my card that I'll never get to use.

Joss Whedon lied to you.  There's no flirtatious interaction and absolutely no one wants to go more than absolutely necessary, let alone twice a week.  And there is absolutely nothing to do, at all, except time how fast I can knit a pattern repeat.

For the record, about six minutes.  It would be faster if I did not have to stop to explain myself to a very confused older woman.  Evidently people do not think better of you for surreptitiously pulling out your phone to snap a picture of your legwarmers in progress.  Who knew?