Apologize for the hiatus. Life gets tough sometimes.
Write some case briefs, write some blog post, write some case briefs, write some blog post. Oh, and prep for Kaplan training. I may be teaching the LSAT soon. Oh goodness.
Guysguysguysguys how much FUN is doing laundry in communal machines?!?!?!?!!!!1111
I'm seriously hoping this concept doesn't fall into the hands of our enemies, because there will be no secrets left once any hostages are made to wash a load of sweaters in a machine that jams up with quarters three-fifths of the time. We would no longer be a super power.
There are roughly 87 million things that can go wrong with doing laundry in machines every one shares. I can group them into four main categories: prep, paying, washing, and drying.
1. Preparation
Favorite part of this is if you live in a different building than the one where the machines are located. Motivation shot before you've even begun. Also guarantees that the instant you want to do laundry, it will begin to sleet. Bed, Bath, and Beyond does not view "all-terrain, all-weather" as a selling point for laundry carriers: I say they are missing a large demographic right there.
You also have to do an awesome job (if you're me) making sure you actually have all of the items you want to wash. My champ move is forgetting I'm wearing a favorite shirt right about 15 minutes into the washing cycle.
2. Paying
For four years of college I was using mostly quarters (and sometimes my card) to pay for laundry and this was a BLAST, let me tell YOU. Learning you're a quarter short when you swore you just counted out enough for a full washing and drying cycle produces a frenzy only previously known in Viking soldiers on primitive methamphetamine. You WILL find another quarter, goshdarnit. You're knocking on people's doors you don't even know, desperately asking for just one George Washington so you can pleasepleasePLEASE not have to dry your socks on your radiator which is probably a fire haz-no, definitely a fire hazard and there isn't nearly enough space to hang everything because it's winter and that laundry load held like 8 sweatshirts and 4 pairs of jeans and they will all be DAMP FOREVER if you can't find one more flippin' quarter so time to dig through your purse and bottom of your backpack because this must happen. It's a party and a half. The machines at Brown were also gold-medal winners at not accepting your quarters after you've loaded an entire two weeks' worth of wardrobe in. I started checking before I put clothes in to avoid the "...you're kidding, right?" feeling and the physical battle I'd then have with the machines (spoiler: they won. Every single time.)
Cards were marginally better, but on those you generally have the problem of "this is boss, I have 75 cents left." My apartment, bless its heart, only lets you put 5s, 10s, and 20s on the card, so God forbid you show up with 9 singles and a twenty. You have no options; the laundry money credit thing cares not that you merely wish to wash your towels and require about 3 dollars on the card. Your twenty is miiiiiiine bwahahahaaaaaa.
3. Washing
Mayyyybe your clothes will get washed. Maybe they will just end up in a soggy, dripping pile that still has bits of your powdered detergent on it. Then you get to transfer it to the dryers, which are sometimes open (I'll address this in a second) and this absolutely guarantees that you will drop your most valuable item of clothing onto the floor...and onto lint. It will not be a sock. It will be the sweater that Mother Teresa knit for you, made of equal parts rainbow and hope. And it's FRAGILE.
4. Drying
This is perhaps the most dangerous, because it can potentially involve interactions with other people. There is the general annoyance of finding that beautiful middle ground between "My clothes are apparently made of glacial meltwater" and "my clothes are magma-temperature and now suitable for Felicity, my American Girl Doll, to wear" in the sogginess spectrum, but the real crisis here is when someone else's clothes are in the dryer. There are some rules here:
If you need to move someone else's clothing from a dryer, it will ALWAYS be underwear, and 7 out of 10 times it will be underwear belonging to someone of the opposite sex.
This person's things will be completed, but still in the dryer, for at least an hour after the cycle ends.
This person will appear the second you actually lose patience and begin to move their things. Also, 7 out of 10 times, they will appear at the same instant you accidentally drop a garment on the floor.
My most recent experience with this was moving a man's underwear and socks which had been in the dryer, complete, for 90 minutes. The underwear all had the Playboy bunny screenprinted on them. I feel NO REMORSE OR SHAME FOR MOVING IT. Thank GOD he did not show up.
Someone invent self-cleaning socks and I will love you forever.
