Rambling Talk About Laundry

My friend K has a washing machine, but no dryer.

No dryer! I don't know how she functions without a dryer. But she's all, eh, no big deal.

Most Brasilians don't have dryers, either, so I'm not sure what the heck I'm going to do when we move there. It's not so much the hanging up of clothes, but the ironing needed after everything is dry. My MIL irons everything, including sheets and underwear, on a daily basis.

I will wear the same shirt to work three days in a row rather than iron another work shirt. I hate hate hate ironing.

So I asked K why she didn't go to the laundromat to dry her clothes, since she had just run out to collect her clothes off the line because it had started to rain. She wouldn't have to deal with the weather, or all the ironing.

K: Laundromats make you feel bad when you go. It's a real downer. It's not like Walmart.

Me: Walmart? What are you talking about?

K: Walmart makes you feel good when you go. Well, and not buying anything. That's bad. BEING there makes you feel good. You know?

Actually, yes, I do. It's the one place on the planet where I feel put together and fashionable. But that only works if your clothes aren't wrinkled.

And I know what she means about laundromats, too. It reminds me of when I was living in L.A. and the washing machine in my apartment complex broke and I drove around for quite a while looking for the cheapest laundromat. I finally found one and started using it regularly. Besides the guys that always tried to get glimpses of my underwear, I didn't think it was that bad. Though I refused to sit in the chairs because they always had something sticky on them, so I sat in my car and just parked so I could keep on eye on my clothes through the front window.

Then I found out from a friend that's lived there all his life, the area the laundromat was in was a really really bad part of town. Hadn't I noticed the litter in the streets, the graffiti on every building and the gangsters walking around?

And, well, yeah, I had noticed. But I'm kind of dense like that. The very next day there was a shooting in one of the cross streets of the mall the laundromat was in, which I found out the next time I went and saw bullet holes in the cement wall underneath the windows and asked about it.

I actually stayed and washed my clothes, but never went back. I found a laundromat in a more upscale part of town. It was more expensive, but I figured an extra quarter per load was worth my life.

And even that more upscale laundromat kind of tainted me for the rest of my days on laundromats in general. Even ones in apartment complexes. Which we had to use until we bought our house a few years ago.

And then finally, not only did we have a laundry room to call our very own, we inherited a stellar washer and dryer. I do believe I hugged and kissed them the first day we moved in, and they've been humming along in constant use ever since.

Now I just need to remember to remove the clothes from the dryer once they're done and put them away so that wrinkles don't set in. Kind of like remembering to take the clothes out of the washer so that they don't sit and mildew for three days. But that's another story, more fitting for a post on my raging absentmindedness.

Um, actually? Since we're on the topic? Anyone have any recommendations for how to get that mildewy smell out of a washer? Because I may or may not have left some laundry in there since Monday and now can't get the smell to go away.