I’ve got a crap ton of laundry that needs to be done. I’m pretty sure I haven’t done a load since before Christmas. This either means that we have a lot of clothes or we wear dirty clothes a lot. Probably more the latter than the former since even when my clothes are all clean I have nothing to wear.

Anyway, I’ve been putting off doing laundry for about two weeks now and we’re pretty much out of things to wear. There aren’t even very many things that aren’t that dirty. I don’t know why I put it off. If I do laundry once a week we never run low on clean underwear, and there’s a manageable amount. Usually about four loads including sheets and towels. But when it’s only been a week I can easily talk myself out of doing it because we have plenty of clean clothes left. Then the next week there’s twice as much to do and it’s overwhelming. Generally I just suck it up and do it then but last week something came up. Which brings us to this week and there is very little left to wear and I’m completely overwhelmed.

It would be much easier if we actually had a washer and dryer in our apartment. The community one is right down the hall so it’s not so bad. It’s not like I have to haul it all to a laundromat and it’s almost always open so I don’t have to fight with anyone for it. The thing is, I have to have a very strict system when I’m doing laundry to maximize dryer time. See if you can keep up with my thought process. It costs $1.25 to wash one load, that’s a given, there’s no fudging it. The dryer is a whole different story. It also costs $1.25 for the initial time of 45 minutes. Unfortunately the dryer sucks and it usually takes a good 60-90 minutes at least to dry a load. If there is still time on the dryer you get an extra 15 minutes of dry time for every quarter. I figured out if I made sure never to let the time run out and switch loads it costs me $2.00 for the first load but every additional load only costs $1.50. Saves me at least .50 a load which adds up over time.

Typing that paragraph made me realize how ridiculous I am. Wow. I didn’t even get into my rules for what goes into the actual loads or how they’re washed/dried. That’s a whole other post though. Or not because you’d probably die of boredom (if you haven’t already from this post.)

Anyway, if I’m going to save my $2.00 or so a week I have to be on top of things. This requires a very big part of my day to be strictly dedicated to laundry. Timers have to be set and loads checked and changed right on schedule or the time runs out and I have to pay a whole $1.25 again which, while not the end of the world, kind of pisses me off. Maybe it’s the competitiveness in me. I need to win over “the man” who tries to dictate how much my laundry is going to cost. I don’t like giving the laundry dudes a quarter more than I have to. You know Friends? I’m Monica.

So, staring at four giant mountains of laundry in front of me (that don’t have a prayer of fitting into only four loads) I realize it’s probably going to have to be put off for one more day. Being on furlough has turned my posts from “What I did on my exciting layover” to “A day in the life of laundry” and it’s made saving a quarter or two really important. Jealous?