For those of you who know me well, you know that I will do anything, and I mean anything, to avoid laundry. While I love clothes and fashion (I turned my second bedroom at my apartment in Grand Forks into a walk-in closet instead of creating an office for myself like a goddamn adult, for instance), I hate the horrible maintenance and never-ending mess that comes with a large wardrobe. Here is the thing I hate about laundry - it is a chore that is never officially finished. If you are wearing clothes, your laundry cannot be completed. I guess you could do laundry naked if you own a washer and dryer, but I have until most recently either lived in apartments without such appliances or with roommates. And while I love most of my former roommates and have had few problems with my neighbors, I think most people would generally frown upon using communal laundry space whilst wearing nothing but a smile. Because I hate this chore so much, I usually let my laundry pile up until I have about 7-8 loads to do. Here in Norway, however, I cannot avoid doing laundry. I didn't bring that much stuff with me. I brought 5 dresses, 5 pairs of pants, 12 skirts, a handful of sweaters, maybe 15 tops, and 5 pairs of tights (and of course socks and underwear, but I am assuming you don't need the rundown on that). That may seem like a lot to some, but to me, it is incredibly limiting. And it forces me to do laundry much more frequently. Today I decided to tackle the problem head on. This ended up being more difficult than I anticipated because instead of having written labels and instructions, which even if in Norwegian can be translated easily through the magic of google, there are just weird symbols on the appliances:
This is the washer. There are far more buttons than necessary, and I am not too sure I put the soap in the right place, but at least the cycles themselves are labeled with words
The Dryer, however, is like "fuck words, let's use happy faces, rain drops, and fern leaves to indicate how to operate this machine. Doesn't everyone speak emoticon/ clip art?
It was what I imagine trying to do laundry on the space station is like. Basically, I stared at the extra buttons on the washer for a couple minutes and was like, "welp I'll just push some things, pour some soap in, hit the start button and hope for the best." The clothes smelled clean, so I guess it worked out okay. The dryer, on the other hand, is either highly ineffective or I picked the wrong fern leaf/ happy face combination. It didn't so much dry my clothes as warm them up. I ended up just hanging them to dry, so I guess no harm no foul. It is funny how you forget that even the mundane can become interesting if what you are familiar with is suddenly changed. While I was annoyed by this laundry ordeal, I was also kind of amused. The absurdity of a grown woman yelling "why in the fuck would anyone consider a rain drop and an exclamation point an effective communication system" to her dryer while alone in her apartment is not lost on me. Well, I don't have anything else to say. Until next time.
this is too funny!
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