Wednesday, July 23, 2003
Four Alarm Laundry Crisis
We're waist deep in old underwear, grass stained overalls, and juicy t-shirts. It's a major laundry crisis brought about by a camping trip and weeks of failed potty training. Just do the laundry all day, you say, and stop complaining? Well that's not so easy. Here's how you do laundry around here:
1. The laundrymat is around the corner. But one person can't carry Ian down the stairs and around the corner with a large bag of laundry, so that can only happen on weekends when there are two adults.
2. You can't go to the laundrymat with any of the kids because they would never be able to sit still for the whole time. Jonah tries to climb up into the wheelie carts and push himself around like a gondolier. The kids have to be occupied elsewhere.
3. The laundry bag is now enormous. When it was just one person, laundry could be put off for weeks. With the four of us, it requires Steve to carry two enormous bags to the laundry mat every weekend.
3. During the weekends, the laundrymat tends to become insanely crowded, so unless you're there at 8:00 on Saturday morning, it's best to forget the whole proposition.
4. So that's why, in the dead of night and dressed in black, we snuck an illegal washer/dryer up the stairs donated by the dearly departed Grandma Brockmeier. However, these units are almost as old as Grandma Brockmeier, so there are a lot of rules here too.
5. Only two small loads of laundry can be done a day. The washer is very small compared to mom's suburban model. And the dryer can only handle about that amount during a whole day. The dryer tends to overheat, so it goes for a half an hour and then needs a break, goes for fifteen mintues, and then needs a break, five minutes and its done for an hour or so.
6. If you try to do 3 loads of laundry, the third load will have to sit in the washer over night and smell oh-so lovely by the next day. You can try to bake off the smell by just keeping it in the dryer for a long time, but that doesn't work so well.
7. You must do the dishes before you do laundry, because the washer is hooked up to the sink. Since we don't have a dish washer, you must first spend 20 minutes at this task.
8. Since there is no chance to do dishes before Steve comes home, it is unrealistic to expect that any laundry can be done before 8:00.
9. Large items like blankets and beach towels must be done at mom's house. Steve must put the large items in the car before he leaves for work, because of rule #1. The car has to be parked in the street and not in the lot.
10. The washer during the spin cycle jumps up and down. The downstairs neighbors haven't complained yet, so we haven't done anything about it. We might have to build some sort of shock absorber for the machine or only wash things when they are out. So this isn't officially a rule, yet, but it might become one.
(I'm trying really, really hard not to make any shake and bake jokes.)
So that's why, smartie-pants, we have our laundry situation.
We're waist deep in old underwear, grass stained overalls, and juicy t-shirts. It's a major laundry crisis brought about by a camping trip and weeks of failed potty training. Just do the laundry all day, you say, and stop complaining? Well that's not so easy. Here's how you do laundry around here:
1. The laundrymat is around the corner. But one person can't carry Ian down the stairs and around the corner with a large bag of laundry, so that can only happen on weekends when there are two adults.
2. You can't go to the laundrymat with any of the kids because they would never be able to sit still for the whole time. Jonah tries to climb up into the wheelie carts and push himself around like a gondolier. The kids have to be occupied elsewhere.
3. The laundry bag is now enormous. When it was just one person, laundry could be put off for weeks. With the four of us, it requires Steve to carry two enormous bags to the laundry mat every weekend.
3. During the weekends, the laundrymat tends to become insanely crowded, so unless you're there at 8:00 on Saturday morning, it's best to forget the whole proposition.
4. So that's why, in the dead of night and dressed in black, we snuck an illegal washer/dryer up the stairs donated by the dearly departed Grandma Brockmeier. However, these units are almost as old as Grandma Brockmeier, so there are a lot of rules here too.
5. Only two small loads of laundry can be done a day. The washer is very small compared to mom's suburban model. And the dryer can only handle about that amount during a whole day. The dryer tends to overheat, so it goes for a half an hour and then needs a break, goes for fifteen mintues, and then needs a break, five minutes and its done for an hour or so.
6. If you try to do 3 loads of laundry, the third load will have to sit in the washer over night and smell oh-so lovely by the next day. You can try to bake off the smell by just keeping it in the dryer for a long time, but that doesn't work so well.
7. You must do the dishes before you do laundry, because the washer is hooked up to the sink. Since we don't have a dish washer, you must first spend 20 minutes at this task.
8. Since there is no chance to do dishes before Steve comes home, it is unrealistic to expect that any laundry can be done before 8:00.
9. Large items like blankets and beach towels must be done at mom's house. Steve must put the large items in the car before he leaves for work, because of rule #1. The car has to be parked in the street and not in the lot.
10. The washer during the spin cycle jumps up and down. The downstairs neighbors haven't complained yet, so we haven't done anything about it. We might have to build some sort of shock absorber for the machine or only wash things when they are out. So this isn't officially a rule, yet, but it might become one.
(I'm trying really, really hard not to make any shake and bake jokes.)
So that's why, smartie-pants, we have our laundry situation.
