dirty laundry

So, I go to the laundromat every now and then. I have enough clothes and towels to last almost two weeks, which is about how long it takes me to collect half the quarters I need. In my time at the laundromat, I've done a lot of people watching, and I think the most interesting thing has been the way people carry their laundry.

I use a square plastic basket and one of those collapsible mesh hampers (which has a hole in it from overstuffing it in college). I can usually carry both at one time, with the basket on my hip and the hamper in my other hand. My basket has pretty nice handles that don't hurt my hands, and it's really durable. I think I got it my freshman year in college, so it's lasted a good five years now, not to mention all the times I used it to move into and out of the dorm. I like my laundry basket. 

Some people use those cheap baskets, the ones with the handles that aren't really molded, so they cut into your hands. A lot of times I see these baskets almost falling apart, barely holding all the clothes.

Some people carry their laundry in trash bags. I once saw a tiny car pull up, and the people must have carried in six huge trash bags full of laundry. I'm not talking about kitchen bags, I mean the hefty black ones like you use in the yard. I thought about this for a long time. Can they not afford a laundry basket? But trash bags are not cheap; in fact, I think they're one of many ridiculously overpriced disposable household necessities. Are they easier to carry? But I volunteer at a poverty outreach center, and most of our clothing donations come in trash bags. I can tell you from experience that a bag full of clothes is heavy and stubborn when you try to hold it. The drawstrings break, the bags tear, they flop all over the place... Then there's the sheer volume of laundry in six trash bags. This is more than I would normally be able to sort in my two hours of volunteer time at the center, and that's just tossing them into the men/women/children bins. Also, laundry is $2/load to wash, and 25 cents for every 7 minutes in the dryer. That's a lot of dough for six bags of laundry -- probably twelve loads. I wonder how often these people wash their clothes? Do they have enough to last a month or more without washing? And where do they get that many quarters? I need to know their secrets.

I have also seen people carry laundry in their arms. No basket, no bag, just a backseat full of clothes. Somehow these folks manage to get all their clothes inside without leaving a trail of socks and underwear. This must take a lot of practice and careful calculation of exactly how to bundle the laundry.

Today I saw a new one: the cardboard box. Not a large box, just a squatty thing small enough for one person to carry and still see where he's going. He was a jolly old fellow, and didn't have much to wash. I didn't want to be nosey, but I think it was mostly socks and underwear. It didn't really even look like he had enough to fill up a machine. Maybe that's all the clothes he has, or maybe he just likes to keep up with the wash so he doesn't end up with six bags full. He wasn't a small man, and I was kind of taking up the whole aisle today. I said "excuse me" and moved my baskets when he started to leave with his box, and he said "It's ok, I needed to go on a diet, and this is just a good reminder of why." I guess a box is a perfectly logical way to carry laundry, I just never thought about it before. I have an REI box that's been waiting to go to recycling, but maybe I should paint "laundry" on the side and let it replace my busted mesh hamper.

You know, it's places like the laundromat that really teach us a lot about humanity. We're so diverse, and we carry ourselves in many different packages. But when you get right down to it, the truth is we all have some figurative "dirty laundry." Besides that, at some point everybody has to wash clothes -- just one of many things that unite us as human beings.