I’d like to justify myself by claiming it was an act of desperation. But in affluent modern America, this is what constitutes desperation: I was overwhelmed with dirty laundry.
Normally I hand-wash my stuff in the sink, which is one reason I wanted that delightfully deep cast-iron double sink that takes up so much room in my tiny lair. It works, sort of. But it leads directly to that quintessentially American phrase, “yeah, but…”
Yeah-but A: The water is so hard that thick calcium deposits routinely form on any vessel that holds it. This gradually gives your clothes the wonderfully comforting texture of coarse sandpaper.
Yeah-but B: You ever try rinsing bed sheets in a sink?
Yeah-but C: I really hate doing it, and I am a lifetime master at finding excuses not to do the things I hate.
I was going to do it a week ago, but chickened out. Fact is, I spend so much time out here in the boonies by myself that it takes an act of overcoming to go into town even with friends, when there’s no risk at all.
(BTW, a lot of people – including friends – seem to assume my lack of official permission to operate a motor vehicle stems from my being a drunkard. I have been a drunkard in the past – not so much these days. But that’s not the reason I don’t have a license. I’ve never been caught on a DWI, and don’t recall ever committing one. I’m a solitary drinker, and consider drunk driving a very bad thing to do. You could hurt yourself that way. And valuable equipment. Not to mention other people, if you’re in a town at the time.)
Anyway, yesterday the laundry thing got under my skin. Sunday nights are dead in the little town nearest where I live, and cops are almost nowhere to be found. So last night I loaded up the Jeep and snuck into town to indulge in the great luxury of an hour at a laundromat.
Never thought I’d use “luxury” and “laundromat” in the same sentence.
I can certainly understand. 🙂 When I was living in Mexico years ago we had an old wringer washer powered by a lawnmower engine. It was a bit dangerous at times, but beat the heck out of washing things in a tub. And there was NO laundromat for hundreds of kilometers in any direction!
Catch rain water to use for doing the wash. Its naturally soft.
“Catch rain water to use for doing the wash. Its naturally soft.”
The other advantage to that, where Joel lives, is he’d only have to do about one load of laundry every other year.
Of course, his neighbors might not find that to be such an advantage.
Oh c’mon, Claire. If I worked at it I could catch enough rainwater to wash four or five times in a year.
And anyway the neighbors are quite used to staying upwind of me already. Sometimes they prefer miles upwind.
Nay, just do it in monsoon season. 🙂
I know I’m late to the party with this, but I JUST stumbled across it, and thought it might be of interest to you:
http://www.utterpower.com/email-of-the-day-111412/