Adventures in Laundry
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. We’re going to eat some hummus, watch some New Year’s fireworks, buy some chocolate, and do some laundry, before we go into quarantine in Thailand.
Adventures in Laundry
Merry Christmas, to those of you who are celebrating today. I realize this holiday season probably looks a little different than usual, and if that’s making you sad, I’m sorry.
The pandemic has caused me and Lee quite a bit of stress this year, in multiple ways, but I have to be honest—if there’s one thing our nomadic lifestyle has prepared us for, it’s a holiday season in the time of Covid. Long distance season’s greetings? Been there, done that.
When it’s safe to gather in person again, in however many months that proves to be, getting together with your loved ones will be all the sweeter without the expectations and pressures that color this time of year for so many of us. I promise.
Of course, Lee and I may have a uniquely skewed perspective on traditional celebrations. We spent our wedding night doing multiple loads of laundry, because we’d been so busy the week before, and we had a very early flight the next day. In keeping with the tradition of practicality that we had thus begun, we spent our first anniversary cleaning out the attic.
All these years later, here we are, and laundry is still one of the governing factors of our lives. We often get questions about what elements of nomading are most difficult, and it’s hard to express just how much the necessity of getting-the-laundry-done governs our days. When you don’t own a lot of clothes, you find they need washing frequently. We often choose our accommodation based on availability of a washing machine, or proximity to a laundry service. I recently skimmed back through my Facebook and Twitter posts from the beginning of our travels, and realized just how much I have talked about laundry in the past few years.
In a fit of randomness (you’re welcome to call it laziness—I acknowledge this trait in myself), I decided to collect all those old social media posts here. So for those of you who are mourning your normal Christmas traditions today, I offer this biographical (but not entirely chronological) series, with some recent updates thrown in for good measure.
Adventures in Laundry:
Goal for the day: figure out how to get laundry done. This will likely be a humorous adventure.
A nice woman in a massage parlor now has all my dirty clothes. Based on the hand-signs, I’d guess my underwear are going to be well-ironed.
Trying to understand settings on German washing machine. One option is ‘Fling.’ This makes me laugh a lot.
The washer died today. All of our (wet) clothes are trapped inside. Tomorrow I will have to wear a skirt. And maybe go buy a crowbar.
Hanging out at the laundromat. ‘Cuz that’s what you do when your clothes get sprung from washer prison after 48 hours.
Got up early to accept delivery of new washer, only to find AC not working. And this is why we sold our house.
Fact: when you’re getting 3rd language certification for a PhD, you don’t necessarily learn the Spanish words for washing machine installation.
For today’s installment of Adventures in Laundry, we’re visiting a grimy, damp rooftop in Hong Kong. Will Lee’s pants dry in the night air? Will Lisa surrender her beloved pink t-shirts to the dingy grey smog that coats the city? Or will she drag the giant laundry rack through the stairwell, searching in vain for a clean, dry place to hang her unmentionables?
In the latest installment of Adventures in Laundry: Not sure exactly how they washed our clothes in Cambodia (we saw one guy washing clothes with his feet, but I trust it wasn’t our stuff), but 3 pairs of my underwear are now full of holes. So bizarre. I must now attempt to purchase unmentionables in the land of the petite. This could get awkward . . .
More Adventures in Laundry: today I washed 2 loads of clothes in fabric softener. (Related: fabric softener gives me a face rash.) Awesomesauce.
Adventures in Laundry, Egyptian-style: this morning I went to do a load in the shared machine where we’re staying. I had to wait my turn—a four-year-old was doing a load. When it was my turn, he insisted on helping me with the soap and the knob. We’re buds. So if you think your kids are too young to do laundry, I suspect you’re underestimating them.
Adventures in Sri Lankan laundry: I discovered, when I got dressed this morning, that I have somehow lost a pair of shorts. Given that I only own 4 outfits, this is a bit of a problem. Also, perplexing. How does one lose clothing? Related: I guess I’m finally going to have to buy a pair of elephant pants.
Lee’s all-time favorite Adventure in Laundry was the time one of his socks turned up missing in Phnom Penh, a couple of hours before our flight. We raced back to the shop, with his one lonely sock in his pocket. When we walked in the door and he held up the sample, the woman at the front counter made a beeline to one specific pile of clothes in this tiny shop jammed full of piles, lifted it up, and underneath was his sock. He still considers it something of a miracle.
You know you’re having an Adventure in Laundry when the hotel charges more for the laundry than you paid for your room. Welcome to the Dead Sea.
Adventures in Laundry, India-style: we asked the proprietor of our guest house if we could get some laundry done. When she brought us our stack of clean clothes, she mentioned that they had a machine, but she’d asked the maid to wash it all by hand. “It’s so much nicer that way, don’t you think?”
In Jordan, a somewhat conservative Muslim country, our Adventure in Laundry involved looking out of our hotel room window & seeing my underwear hanging on the street in front of the laundry shop. For some reason, Lee thought that was hilarious. I did not agree.
During the protests in Chile last year, we had to evacuate from our hotel when the building next door was burned to the ground. I ran around in circles, squawking about our passports. When we got out to the (tear-gas-soaked) street and stopped to assess, I realized that Lee had grabbed his computer, our passports, and his backpack, stuffed full of dirty laundry. Because #priorities.
When we decided to go to South Korea back in April, knowing we’d have to go into mandatory quarantine, Lee very wisely bought a pair of pajamas. He wore them every day for those two weeks, then left them behind and walked out in a fresh, clean outfit. I sat around our dorm room wearing my normal clothes—all of them, repeatedly—so when we were released, the first thing I had to do was . . . laundry.
Lee’s least favorite Adventure in Laundry was on Jeju Island last summer, in South Korea. He took a load out of the machine, and as he was carrying the pile of wet clothes across the room to the drying rack, he felt a wicked sting on his hand. He dropped the whole pile on the rack, and wet clothes fell everywhere—but he saw a giant centipede on one of his shirts. A cluster%^& of confusion ensued, with hollering and swatting and the slap of wet clothes being thrown around. At one point, he was yelling at me to get the centipede off the shirt, and apparently thought I should use my hands to do this. Luckily, his bitten/stung/swollen finger—and our marriage—survived.
We’ve been on Bonaire for two and a half months now, and because our apartment has a washer, and because he can, Lee has done a load of laundry Every. Single. Day.
Which is good, because the three shirts I mail-ordered on October 6 never arrived. So I’ve spent our time here rotating between the three sleeveless shirts I already own, and bathing suits. It could be worse.
Happy Holidays, y’all!
Take care,
Lisa
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