LAUNDRY LAUGHS
Laundry tops my list of most-hated chores. Our apartment complex has a public laundry. There are some 5 washing machines and about 200 people, hence, getting it done is such an excellent exercise in time management that I feel business schools would do well to incorporate this into their curriculum.
A wash cycle is about 23-25 minutes usually and the dryer takes about 45 minutes. And heaven help you if you don’t make it to the machines on time. The next person waiting for the machine will simply take all your clothes and dump it on the nearest flat surface. So if you do not want to face the public humiliation of having all your clothes on display, you would do good to ensure that you reach the washing machine at exactly 22-1/2 minutes from the time you started it. This has to be the most aggravating part of the entire exercise. Personally, the very thought of some stranger handling my clothes gives me the goose bumps.
I now have an action plan to circumvent all this hassle. I absolutely refuse to do my laundry on weekends, even if I am doing nothing more exciting than reading in bed. My precious weekends are not to be wasted on mundane stuff like laundry. Next, I make sure I get it started before 7 o’clock. I am yet to bash in the head of the next impatient male wanting to do his laundry as well as watch the Monday night football game at the same time, so it looks like my plan is working.
Yesterday, when I lugged my heavy basket into the laundry, I was confronted by a sign on the door. Dreading what I would find, I read through it hastily, in the semidarkness. It said, “All but two trees will be uprooted and pruned.” I was shocked. Our apartment complex has atleast 25 trees. And notwithstanding the fact that I was forever tracking tiny little leaves into my room and having to vacuum every two days, I loved those trees. I did not want such a horrible fate befalling them. And why did they need to uproot the trees to prune them? Was this another of those American ways that I was never going to comprehend? I have heard of tree doctors and trees being transplanted in Bangalore, but to do that to 25-odd trees did seem like a mind-boggling exercise in futility. Would they ever take root again or did the pruners plan to plant fully grown trees next spring??
Soon it was time to go back to the laundry room and I decided to read the sign again. And then it dawned on me why my English teacher was so adamant about commas and their placement in a sentence.
A wash cycle is about 23-25 minutes usually and the dryer takes about 45 minutes. And heaven help you if you don’t make it to the machines on time. The next person waiting for the machine will simply take all your clothes and dump it on the nearest flat surface. So if you do not want to face the public humiliation of having all your clothes on display, you would do good to ensure that you reach the washing machine at exactly 22-1/2 minutes from the time you started it. This has to be the most aggravating part of the entire exercise. Personally, the very thought of some stranger handling my clothes gives me the goose bumps.
I now have an action plan to circumvent all this hassle. I absolutely refuse to do my laundry on weekends, even if I am doing nothing more exciting than reading in bed. My precious weekends are not to be wasted on mundane stuff like laundry. Next, I make sure I get it started before 7 o’clock. I am yet to bash in the head of the next impatient male wanting to do his laundry as well as watch the Monday night football game at the same time, so it looks like my plan is working.
Yesterday, when I lugged my heavy basket into the laundry, I was confronted by a sign on the door. Dreading what I would find, I read through it hastily, in the semidarkness. It said, “All but two trees will be uprooted and pruned.” I was shocked. Our apartment complex has atleast 25 trees. And notwithstanding the fact that I was forever tracking tiny little leaves into my room and having to vacuum every two days, I loved those trees. I did not want such a horrible fate befalling them. And why did they need to uproot the trees to prune them? Was this another of those American ways that I was never going to comprehend? I have heard of tree doctors and trees being transplanted in Bangalore, but to do that to 25-odd trees did seem like a mind-boggling exercise in futility. Would they ever take root again or did the pruners plan to plant fully grown trees next spring??
Soon it was time to go back to the laundry room and I decided to read the sign again. And then it dawned on me why my English teacher was so adamant about commas and their placement in a sentence.
posted by newatthis at 1:27 PM
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