It’s done. Complete. Accomplished.
I have officially completed a load of wash. Alright, well, I actually did it last week and just chose to bring it up now.
It was a more intricate process than I was visioning in my head. The ultimate goal is to have your laundry come out as when it went in, only cleaner. It’s a very simple idea, really. They sure do manage to make it difficult here.
I have a tendency to shrink my clothes, so you can imagine my timidness as I stared blankly at all of the options before me. Colors, warm. Whites should be boiled for best results. While observing these industrial, hellish-temperatures and the spin cycles that shake the washer back and forth, making a sound as though there is a plane taking off in the room, it only made me more nervous. I was nearly freaking out when I discovered that once those doors lock, there is no turning back. It was as though the machine was mocking me in a menacing tone that said There in there, buddy, and you better damn hope that you picked the best cycle for your clothes (insert menacing laugh here). I was a little discouraged, for it reminded me of the evil heater in the movie Home Alone that the then sweet Macaulay Culkin was so desperately afraid of.
So after I waited the unnecessarily long wash cycle to finished, I gathered my clothes together to assess the damage. My shirt was all “pilly” from the excessive spinning (“This is to remove any excess water”. Yeah, right, it was practically on fire.) I tried to imagine what it would be like to be that pink extra large t-shirt in the laundry. After a trip through that thing, I would be begging for mercy while my eyeballs spun in its sockets, and I was urping on the linoleum floor.
I felt bad to have to put it through more misery, but I needed to test out the dryers.
Because of the horror stories I was told about the school dryers, I cautiously set mine on Delicates. I’d imagine that would be alright. I had calmed down since the washer, and was confident on the selection I had made this time.
Oh, how I was wrong.
Where I’m from, the “delicates” setting is for your underwear and other “delicate” things where they are to be dried in a “delicate” manner. Apparently, here the “Delicates” setting is interpreted as to taking the highest setting used to dry a pair of elephant trousers, and back it down a couple of degrees just enough so it wouldn’t shrink its underwear.
I’ll leave it at that.
I will say however that it will be a while before I attempt to do laundry again. I just hope I have enough Febreeze to get me through the days until then.

Hope your whites stay bright and your B.O. minimal,
-c