I'm still in shock. It's been easily 15 years since I last went to the laundry mat. Well, our dryer broke a month or two ago, and fall in Northern Ontario is just....well, fall in Northern Ontario. Wet. Cold. Rainy. Miserable. But four people wearing clothes means there is always laundry to do. Especially if one of those four people is a teenage girl. All summer, a broken dryer was no big deal. Just hang the clothes on the line outside. Cheaper anyway, right? Of course! Enter fall. And the rain. And the cold. And the miserable. For Two Weeks!!!!!! Socks and underwear and dancing tights are getting to be in short supply, so, I broke down. I hauled two weeks of four people's clothing, towels and bedding to the laundromat in a cab, because we're environmentally friendly and don't own a car.
OMFG.
Let's just say between cab fare and those machines? I could almost have bought a used dryer for the amount of money I spent last night. That's a pocket full of cash and three and a half hours of my life I will never get back.
In fact, the more I think about it, the madder I get. I would be over the moon if I got paid by the hour what I spent by the hour last night. Hell, I'd sure as shootin' be able to afford a new clothes dryer, never mind a used one...
Thank goodness for my son and his irresistible baby blues. The very nice Christian laundromat owner and her friend had ordered pizza, and all he had to do was look longingly at that box once and they were all over offering him slices of pizza pie and cookies for dessert. Which I appreciate, because once she empties those machines out, she can sure afford it better than I can!!!
But....HUZZAH!!!!!!! Observe: the blessed mountain of clean laundry. So at least there's that.
6 comments:
I was completely prepared for the inflation at the laundromat when I went to wash my comforters. It spent about $20-30 and spent a good four hours there. It was... fun. O.O Okay, maybe I could think of better things to do with my Saturdays.
Of course, gas is edging up to $5/gal. here. When someone comments, "Well, it's $10/gal. in England," my response is, "I don't live in England. Even England has a better mass transit system than we do. To get from my house to Malibu on mass transit takes 2 hours. By car, it's 45 minutes. You tell me which one you'd take given a choice. If it's local enough, I can walk or ride my bike. I'll gladly take the metro (the one line that starts 2 miles from my house and has a stop at the Natural History Museum and the California Science Center) when I can. There are just a lot of places I can't get to by the Metro. And in some areas of LA, riding a bike is like pining a "run me over" sign on my back.
Have you noticed when you eat out the much smaller portions? I mean much smaller portions. It's not wonder when the gas prices are so jacked up.
Hm... did someone hit a hot button? LOL
Gas prices I don't know about, since, like I said, we don't own a car, and the transit system where we live is passable. Rest assured, though, I will be trolling those kajiji adds for a new-to-me dryer!!!!!!!
This is the very reason I have always had a wringer washer on hand, Jaime. I hate the darn things, it's hard work, but it's economical and is easy on water usage. On the downside, using a wringer is hard work, but when I compare the work of an entire afternoon or morning in my home to the all-day event of loading clothes in a vehicle, driving 20 minutes one day to the laundromat, dealing with rude people who often turn into butt wipes over a free dryer, and then having to stand there and keep an eye on everything (at home I can do go something else or even sit and write while laundry churns) and then folding, folding, folding...nope. Give me my wringer washer and rinse tub any day.
Besides, I can throw things in my dryer or hang it up outside or on my indoor line, so it saves me time even if I do use a wringer.
And don't even get me started on the price of laundromat laundry here. I nearly fainted when I saw $6.25 for a large capacity washer. Oh, and a whopping 6 minutes of dryer time is all we get here for a quarter.
Our gas is down to $3.74 a gallon here, Marci, but it's still too expensive when most of us in this area have to drive 20 minutes or more in any direction to a job or store.
Thank goodness for us, washing isn't an issue, Faith. Just drying, since our basement is musty, and this time of year, geting a day with enough sunny weather to hang it outside is really hit or miss.
At our old house we had a woodburner in the basement, so I didn't have to worry about the clothes, but at this new place our basement gets wet and we heat with fuel oil. So I hang our laundry in a small alcove-like backyard that leads into the bigger yard. If it's too cold, like it is now, I hang clothes in the laundry room on a line. We sit a heater out there. I do use the dryer, but usually for loads of undies/socks and things that have lint on them. Our dryer really drives the electricity bill up, up, up. :-(
Our washer and dryer are used every day, what with everyone doing their own laundry, often at 2 in the morning...did I mention husband and I sleep on the lower level, near the laundry room?
The only time we use a laundromat is when we are camping for a week or more...then we're so pathetically thrilled to have clean underwear again, that it's worth any price! I sit in the place, paying for wi-fi for my laptop and checking my e-mails, while the family does the grocery shopping, or otherwise entertains themselves. I get some "alone time", and the clothes smell better. Win-win for everyone!
When I was younger, I hated when guys would try to pick you up there! Seems there was some Playboy article back in the day, telling men that a laundromat was a great place to meet women...presumably because we couldn't leave the building to get away from them? My opinion always was that I'm wearing my panties inside-out, with my oldest sweat pants/tee shirt, and I hate being there so I'm crabby. If you find all of that attractive you have WAY more issues than I want to deal with! F**k off, Romeo!
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