Friday, April 24, 2009

Miracles Can Happen.....

As some of you might have heard, I have finally, at 48 years old, gotten my very own washer and dryer! Now, as you can see, it's nothing fancy, just a couple of plain white simple functioning appliances that we found at an auction. We figured, since they have to live outside, why spend $2,000 on a fire engine red, front loading double fill gadget when we found both of these for $150!
In case you're wondering how this all came about, since I have been having so much neck pain, and carrying heavy baskets of laundry were just killing me, I told Ratburn that he was from that point on accompanying me to the laundromat. That happened exactly 3 times before Mr R decided it was time for our own washer and dryer. Now, why I did not think of this 17 years earlier, when we first moved here, I do not know...oh wait, the neck thing.
I was a little unsure how to operate these things since there are no quarter slots, but after a little coaching from the neighbors, I think I have it down now. Being used to enormous laundromat washers, I put way too much soap in the very first load, and bubbles were everywhere! No problem, I just ran it again with just water! How fun is that? Even Little Rita is into it, maybe a little too much, as she wants to wash her clothes every day right after she wears them!

Of course we had to scratch our names into the cement slab that we poured for it! The round thing is a 2 rupee coin that we pressed into the wet cement.

And here is Little Rita and me lounging atop our mini outdoor laundromat! Now I have a few more things on the honeydo list before it's totally finished such as cleaning up all the flotsam around the yard that has accumulated during this project, and adding some sides to the "shed."
I know it ain't nothing fancy but it sure beats hanging out at the laundromat.
I will leave you with a list of unpleasant things I have had to deal with in my life of laundromats:
1. Once a man came over to the corner where we were folding to fetch his stuff from the dryer, and left an extremely foul fart smell behind just for us. What a fricking pig, I just wanted to smack him.
2. Recently, an analy retentive man asked me if I would take my stuff out of dryer number 5 because he wanted to keep all his clothes in order. He had dryers 3, 4 and 6. Clearly he could not deal with me having #5.
Wanna know what I did?
I walked over and added more quarters to #5 and left my stuff in there. I then counted out loud so that he could hear there were 12, count em, 12 empty dryers available. He was losing it over this! Stick that broom handle up a little further, sir.
3. Upon removing our towels from the washer, found that the spin cycle had not happened. Do you know how much one dripping wet towel weighs, let alone 15, and how long one has to wait to run the load over again without soap?
4. This happens all the time. You get your hangers, baskets, purse, quarters all arranged and ready at a folding table that you have cleaned the lint and whatnot off, then some moron comes in and dumps their dirty laundry right on top of your stuff.
5. To your horror, watch someone come into the laundromat with stinky hairy dog or horse blankets, knowing that you have to share those washers with them.
6. The money changer eats your twenty dollar bill and the attendant doesn't believe you, so you have to wait a week for the owner to come along and count quarters and find your crumpled up twenty right where it got eaten.
7. You reach into the dryer to take out your clothes and get a burn on your arm with little circle shapes from the sides of the drum.
8. You drop your panties on the filthy laundromat floor.
9. You gather up your baskets of dirty laundry, bring to the laundromat, drag it inside, only to find that all the washers are being used.
10. You have to deal with competitive snarky laundro bitches that want to take cuts when you have to wait for dryers.

I could go on...after 30 years of laundromats, I could write a book.
Have a lovely weekend!

4 comments:

G-Man said...

Your washer and dryer is outside?
Next to the Yurt?
I wanna see a pic of the 'out-house'..:P

G-Man said...

(G-Man is bent over, buttocks in perfect position for the swift-kick)






...Bingo!...hehehhe

lime said...

i am delighted for you. really i know laundromats are a total pain. i do think you should write a book. i bet it would be a hoot.

S said...

So whats the big deal Gman! :P
KICK KICK KICK!

I do not have an outhouse, but we only have one bathroom and with LR being a preteen and spending way too much time primping in the bathroom, we have def "gone" outside! :P (Just #1~)

Lime, I know! I could call it confessions of a laundromat fanatic or something like that!