HK Day 26: Laundering

And I do not, in any way, mean money laundering. I mean honest-to-goodness washing of clothes, towels, bedsheets, and the like.

When I was young, I never really got to wash clothes. Not because we were rich and had maids, but because my mom would refuse to let me anywhere near a task that involved water. I loved to play with water, splashing around whenever I was tasked to wash the dishes or some small article of clothing. I liked the feeling of doing a chore that felt like I was also taking a bath. In other words, I made a mighty mess every time I tried, so my mother decided that the household was safer with me dealing with strictly dry objects.

That meant I never really did the heavy duty, soap-and-fabric-conditioner, scrubbing-and-dunking kind of wash. I was allowed to do a bit of sink washing when I was older (and presumably more mature) but was definitely not deemed worthy to approach the washing machine. I had more luck with the flat iron, but as I was petrified of burning clothes, and God forbid, myself, I only ironed clothes when it was absolutely necessary (such as when my brother would pay me Php20 per item when he was in a hurry to go to work).

Now that I live far away from my well-meaning mom, I am now confronted with the interesting — and very foreign — task of washing clothes for myself and my husband. Worse still, the flat we live in comes with a drum type (front loading) washing machine, one that I have truly never even seen at home. I would have  had a better idea if it were a top loading sort, which my mom used, because I’d spent hours watching her heave and pull assorted clothing out of the machine from a safe distance. For example, I knew that one could save the soap in a top loading machine because you’re not compelled to immediately drain it in order to remove clothes and dunk in a different batch. Not so in a front-loading machine, not unless you’d like to be splashed all over by soap water (that, and besides, the darned door wouldn’t open even if you tried).

To top that all off, the washing machine is a relatively old model that is as cranky as a drunkard denied his usual beer. It’s got all these dials and buttons that have no words on them, just numbers — which would have been alright, assuming you had the manual that usually goes with these things and explains everything, but alas, no. As it was, all this piece of machinery has by way of instruction is this sort-of illustration panel that makes no sense to my visual brain. My husband and I thought the symbols referred to the amount of time each cycle would go, but once I fed the machine its diet of clothes, it would just go ahead and do what it wanted with it, leaving me pulling hair in its wake. The thing is, I cannot stop it in the middle of its cycle even if I wished, not if I wanted to destroy the whole thing and end up having to pay for it. So of course, I’ve had loads that went through three full washing cycles and others that got spun-dry twice as I desperately twirled dials. Thank God my earliest efforts involved mostly my husband’s white undershirts, which I could ruin and just replace at small cost. Whew.

Finally, someone explained the whole thing to me and I found, much to my surprise, that I was over-reading everything. The symbols and colors simply referred to wash (black; dots) and dry (pink; sun-burst type of symbol). The duration was apparently roughly five minutes per number, so, say, if I wanted a quick wash I would turn the dial to seven because it always stops at nine (that’s ten minutes, total). Better still, I could now control the drying process so I could take better care of delicate clothing that did not require a lot of tumble drying. Likewise, I found that I could tumble dry for two hours so that everything comes out almost completely dry, and hardly even needs a line!

Now that I’ve finally figured things out, the next thing I had to learn was reading those mysterious symbols that come with clothes — yes, those little triangles and squares that are on every label. Apparently, there’s a whole system that dictates how you wash, how long, how hot, etc. There’re also reminders on dry cleaning (you can do it yourself, but I would highly suggest having it professionally done. After all, you may be saving a couple of bucks but it wouldn’t be worth accidentally shrinking that dress that you love!), bleaching, and ironing. Once I learned this, it was like suddenly making sense of a foreign language: there was, apparently, some rhyme and reason to these things. Isn’t that cool?

Very handy reminders.

 

Armed with my new knowledge, the washing machine and I have found a sort of middle ground. I have accepted the fact that even though we will never really be friends, we could actually come into a truce, and I am now able to cajole it into doing what I want it to do with my clothes. In return, I only ever put in half a load (a bit wasteful on soap but at least I keep it happy) and try to keep from spin-drying jeans (which it hates, apparently). With these few precautions in mind, the machine chugs happily away even as I go on and do other chores, and I could be confident of the fact that I would not be pulling out a mess at the end of a cycle.

So do I enjoy laundering? Mysteriously enough, I actually do. There’s something therapeutic and soothing about the task of loading, unloading, and folding clothes. There’s a satisfaction to be had looking at a fresh pile of folded clothes on the bed, smelling clean and crisp. There’s an odd sense of safety in knowing that you have had a personal hand in providing your household with clean wear, especially if you deal with hyper sensitive skin, like I do. And there’s a sense of pride in the fact that you have made a contribution towards everyone’s well-being.

Now … if only that could also apply to ironing …