2024, Business, Mysteries, Seasons

The Land that Time Forgot

43 Comments

I go to the laundromat twice a year.  I have allergy covers on my box spring, mattress and pillows to help deter my allergy nemesis – the dust mite.  My allergy doctor recommended stripping these covers off and washing them in hot water twice a year.  I also do the pillows themselves as well as my bed’s dust ruffle and my blankets.  A lot of laundry.  Now I can do all this laundry at home, and did so a couple of times during pandemic, but it’s a LOT of up and down stairs and takes most of the day.  The laundromat, while more expensive, is fast. 

It was quiet when I arrived at 8:30 a.m.  I had been feeling a little anxious that I didn’t go earlier; you don’t want to run into big crowds where dryer time is involved.  There were actually only two other folks there so I had pretty much my pick of machines.  I also had a load of regular laundry with me so I used four machines and sat happily with my book while they filled/washed/rinsed and tumbled.  I looked up at the clock and noticed that it said 2:33.  Hmmmm.  I checked back when I was emptying the washers and noticed it still said 2:33. 

This particular laundromat is quite large and in good shape.  Two of the walls have undersea artwork – whales, fish, seagrass, etc.  On the ledge above all the washing machines on the south side of the building, there are lots of pretty planters, although they don’t look real.  There are a couple of arcade games for kids and the ubiquitous tv screens (although luckily no sound). The washers & dryers have the option to use a credit card, the machines that dispense packets of soap are always working and there are a few vending machines for pop and snacks.  The dryers keep going until the sensor says the load is dry so you don’t have to keep plugging coins in for cycle after cycle.  Most importantly there is a full-time maintenance employee who is always around, keeping things clean and orderly.  This time I saw him cleaning out the lint traps on the dryers – all these years and I’d never thought about lint at the laundromat.  

More folks eventually started to file in, one family who had the back of their pickup chock a block full of bags of laundry.  One woman was clearly irritated by something in her life; she threw her laundry around like it was offending her.  Another young couple had a disagreement about how to sort the laundry out; maybe doing your laundry together at the laundromat is another of those tests to see how compatible you are as a couple.  It was great people watching, a little world all of it’s own there at 37th and Chicago.

After all my stuff was washed, dried and folded up ready to head home (2 hours total), I looked up – still 2:33 p.m.

When was the last time you hung out laundry to dry?

Here is Barbara’s clothesline photo… putting it here…. long story.

43 thoughts on “The Land that Time Forgot”

  1. I don’t remember ever hanging laundry out to dry but I do remember taking it in for Mom.

    The wooden clothes pins with baseball cards were essential accessories to bicycle wheels.

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  2. We hung laundry to dry in Taiwan from 1982 to 2007. Then we moved from upstairs apartments to a ground-level house. There was space for hanging stuff in the back yard, but it was also a mosquito feeding ground almost all year long, so the old dryer we’d bought from someone leaving Taiwan in 1984 was used until it could function no more. Even though we knew we’d depart (in 2018) before we could get the worth out of another one, we happily replaced it.

    Now situated in Michigan, where the sun occasionally shines, I’d like to install a line in the back yard but “she who has claimed laundry as her province” declines allowing me to do her that favor.

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  3. Robin mentions from time to time that she wishes we had a clothesline in the back yard, but there’s no place we could put one up that wouldn’t be a serious obstruction the rest of the time. She will sometimes use the chairs on the patio and a small folding rack to dry garments that get hand washed and can’t go in the dryer, like sweaters. I do most of the other laundry. I just washed the bedding last Monday.

    Recently our clothes dryer started making alarming noises. It began with a high-pitched squeak and advanced into ear-splitting metallic squeals. A quick consultation with online sources suggested the problem was likely with the drum support wheels or the belt. There’s an appliance parts store reasonably close. I went over there with make, model, and serial number and secured replacement parts. They sell the necessary wheels and belt and minor hardware as a kit, which makes sense. As long as you have the machine open, why not refresh all the interrelated parts? Anyway, the repair, which online guides demonstrated in about 15 minutes, took me an hour, since I had to find just the right tools for the hardware and repositioning the drum was trickier and more awkward that it looked on the video (actually, I don’t think they showed that part. They just said, “Put it all back together”). The repair was successful and the squeal is gone.

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      1. It’s not a difficult fix—not worth calling in a repairman—but I don’t do it often enough to remember all the details without an online reminder.

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    2. 40 years ago we had a dryer on which I too routinely had to replace the rollers supporting the drum. But everything was simpler to then. We had a clothes line in the back yard which we used often. Despite thatd, the rollers wore out fast.

      Clyde

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    3. I was in a temporary situation in an employer-owned residence when the dryer there squealed some years ago. It seemed to me to be the bearing where the drum twirled on an axle. Unwilling to spend time and $$$ on someone else’s machine, I gave it a few squirts of WD-40 and solved the problem until the next occupant’s occupancy.

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  4. Sounds like you found the Cadillac of Laundromats, VS!

    Today I will hang laundry on the line… the scent of sun-dried laundry has not been captured by any laundry product.

    My first memory of that is when I was maybe 4 yrs., hanging probably the washcloths (or doll clothes) on a little line which my mom had rigged up beside the tall one. I may see if I can find the photo… VS, would you be able to post it?

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  5. I hang bedspreads that can’t be dried over the railing on the stoep. They are too heavy to blow off. Sometimes I hang out the duvets there just to air them out.

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    2. Most summers I hang out my quilt on a beautiful sunny day at least once. Maybe I’ve been conditioned this way since childhood, but it always seems to have a wonderful fresh smell after I’ve done that.

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  6. I try to dry things on a line as often as possible. Unfortunately, clotheslines of any kind are another one of many banned things in this condo association. I am able to hide things pretty well though. I have a couple of drying racks that fold up when not in use. I put these out on the deck behind the privacy walls and hang things on them. In the winter I just use them in the spare bedroom. I had a clothesline at my Waterville house. I made good use of it. I much prefer drying clothes outside on a clothesline.

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  7. Rise And Shine, Baboons, from JacAnon

    I have a retractable clothesline that does not take up any space when I am not using it. I used it last year, but not often due to the dry dusty summer we had last year. The sheets and pillow cases came in with more allergens than they had when I hung them up. LIfe is now becoming more routine after Lou’s health crisis, so next week I will probably use the line to hang out bedding. Phoebe is shedding like a dog in Springtime so everything is covered with doghair.

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  9. I have feeling issues in my hands, meaning among other things I cannot always tell when clothes are fully dry. Plus some of my clothes, such as my jeans, have thick parts which are hard to get dry. We have a bed with metal rails running from high corner posts. So I routinely hang clothes IN to dry over those rails. When l left to come to Sandra today, I left four items to dry.

    She got a very good medical report yesterday. And I am done with the heart monitor. My watch says no signs of A-fib and my BP has been running in the range of 105-125 over 55-70. My heart rate still likes to hover in the forties when I sit and even when I doing light housework. But in the higher 40’s not the lower 40’s.

    Clyde

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  10. I have been “hung out to dry” several times by my employers. The last time contributed mightily to my retirement. The project was corridors in Children’s Hospital Cincinnati. Of course, the work was all third shift and areas had to be totally completed for next day traffic. The crew worked hard and made the schedule night after night. A month later, the vinyl plank work was peaking up and becoming a trip hazard. I must have done something wrong! Fix it. I tried. The fixes failed. Everyone is now unhappy. There is duct tape everywhere holding the floor together. Finally a manufacturer’s rep shows up to fix stuff. We fail together. An admission comes through that the product is defective. My employer bought it cheaply. I’m not feeling vindicated after being tortured/dried up in a third level of flooring Hell.

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  11. We have a clothesline strung between our house and our garage all summer long, and it gets used frequently. It’s not particularly attractive to look at, but then, neither is the collection of five gallon pails in different colors that Hans has planted this year’s tomato plants in. I asked why he had planted the tomatoes in those pails rather than where we have always planted them, and there simply is no rational thought behind it. Hans is a relative newcomer to gardening, and for some reason he seems to think that his ideas are better than what experienced gardeners have learned through years of experience. I’ll probably be relying heavily on the local farmers’ market this year. Sigh!

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  13. it’s interesting.

    When we were I Dublin, trying to find our hotel, we were given directions from someone who works in the hotel. He said turn left, take the next left, and the parking lot will be on your right. Yeah, right.

    My friend Laurel had been driving in Dublin and I think she’d just about had it. Anyway, the first left was fine, but it was quite a ways before there was another possible left and that took us farther away from the hotel. We went back to where we started and tried again. We took a left, then turned left into an alley. It wasn’t the right way but it was like a whole new world opened up in front of us. This is the kind of place where movies are filmed. It was a parking lot for a whole block of flats. The balconies of all these flats faced the parking area. Every single balcony had laundry hanging all over it. Every article of clothing you can imagine and sheets, towels, rugs, you name it. It was a carnival of color. Unfortunately it wasn’t our car park and it didn’t help with Laurel’s frustrations.

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      1. Got it. Was on a long call w/ YA. I put the photo up above, in the main story. WP doesn’t let us just add photos to comments…. well, not without coughing up some serious upgrade costs!

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      2. Unfortunately no. I’ve wished I had a number of times. We were all completely exhausted and I really had begun to feel ill. (It got worse.) Our nerves were frayed from the experience of driving through Dublin, which is not for the faint of heart. We just wanted to find our car park and get our luggage up to our room.

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  14. THINGS I SAY TO MYSELF WHILE HANGNG LAUNDRY
    by Ruth Stone

    If an ant, crossing on the clothesline

    from apple tree to apple tree,

    would think and think,
    
it probably could not dream up Albert Einstein.

    Or even his sloppy moustache;

    or the wrinkled skin bags under his eyes

    that puffed out years later,

    after he dreamed up that maddening relativity.

    Even laundry is three-dimensional.

    The ants cross its great fibrous forests
    from clothespin to clothespin

    carrying the very heart of life in their sacs or mandibles,

    the very heart of the universe in their formic acid molecules.

    And how refreshing the linens are,

    lying in the clean sheets at night,

    when you seem to be the only one on the mountain,

    and your body feels the smooth touch of the bed
    like love against your skin;

    and the heavy sac of yourself relaxes into its embrace.

    When you turn out the light,

    you are blind in the dark

    as perhaps the ants are blind,

    with the same abstract leap out of this limiting dimension.

    So that the very curve of light,

    as it is pulled in the dimple of space,

    is relative to your own blind pathway across the abyss.

    And there in the dark is Albert Einstein

    with his clever formula that looks like little mandibles

    digging tunnels into the earth

    and bringing it up, grain by grain,

    the crystals of sand exploding
    into white-hot radiant turbulence,

    smiling at you, his shy bushy smile,

    along an imaginary line from here to there.

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