We’re always told to count our blessings – the idea that there is so much we take for granted and ought be grateful for that we forget about. In general in Western society we have a lot, yet we’re unable to be happy with it.
I’m not going to delve into the philosophy behind that; instead, here’s something else to be grateful for: laundry.
At home, it’s like magic. Every few days, my mum would remind me to move things from my floor to the laundry bin, then the next day (or two) it would reappear clean on my bed. Didn’t really think about it.
Moving to university and having to do it myself, I noticed that it can be a bit of a chore, but it wasn’t a biggie. It takes three trips to the laundry room (to put it in, swap to dryer, remove) over a two hour period, so isn’t too bad. Occasionally, machine would break and flood, so I would have to hang out my laundry for a couple of days instead of just drying it, or a tshirt would shrink (I started buying them all one size bigger to account for this), but this isn’t too bad.
So far, the Wohnheim (dorm) I’m in in Bonn hasn’t been too great for laundry. There are three machines between 500 people (about half as many as there were back in Oxford, I think), for a start, so I only found a machine free on my third trip down – but that’s to be expected from a Sunday afternoon. I went back to move it to the dryer and found a few problems. 1) The powder didn’t get taken in, so my clothes have been made wet and had a softener on them, but not really clean. 2) The timer on the dryer didn’t work and the number kept jumping back up – it should have finished ten minutes before I got there (from the reading I saw) yet still had fifteen to go (thankfully, the guy whose clothes were in there saw it jump up so he didn’t have to take my word for it). 3) The dryer doesn’t work anyway, his clothes were still wet after an hour, which at least neutralises problem #2 but means I have to hang them up, which will take awhile as in the laundry room it’s quite cold!
So be thankful for laundry provisions, which you probably have, especially if it’s in the form of another person!
PS: Mum, I love you, and I’m never grateful enough for things like laundry that you do.