T = 0 min: I sling my laundry bags over my shoulder and head down to the laundry room, using one washer if it's a light load week and two washers if it's a heavy load week.
T = 3 min: I put in my quarters and press "colors" or "whites," depending on the content of the load. I do a little work or futz around on the computer.
T = 30 min: I retrieve my laundry from the washers and put the clothes in the dryer. I clean off the lint board thing and hope that there's no actual consequence to slightly over-stuffing the machine.
T = 32 min: I press the "delicates" button. Then I do some actual work or some very involved futzing.
T = 98 min: I pull my clothes out of the dryer and check that they're dry. Unless I've hideously overstuffed, they are.
T = 103 min: I return to my apartment and begin to sort.
The end! After about two hours, my entire laundry process is done.
Not so here.
Today, I did laundry from 1:15 pm to 7:45 pm. I borrowed a set of keys to the apartment where the washer/dryer is located—the same apartment I'll be moving into in a few weeks—and headed up to the place. When I got there, there were clothes already in the wash. I noticed the timer had eight minutes left on it, so I wasn't too concerned. I heard someone vacuuming upstairs (still within the apartment), so I went up an introduced myself to Claudio, an astronomy student at the University of Padua here through the end of June (so he'll be my roommate for about two weeks). He showed me around the apartment (which, um, didn't take long) and pointed out his room to me. "Oh, this isn't small at all!" I said. "Well, I have the biggest one. That one's tiny," he responded pointing to the room in the corner. Five seconds later, I asked if he knew which person was leaving mid-June. "Oh, she is," again, pointing to the room in the corner. Greeeeeat.
By that point his clothes were done, so he moved them into the dryer. The machine was too small for both whites and colors, so I started with the colors. On this machine, when you play around with the settings, you can see how long the load will take. I started with delicates in 30 degree water, because I figured that was appropriate for new, brightly-colored work shirts and bras and such. Fifty-three minutes. "Seriously?" I thought naively. "There must be a faster option." No no no no. Fifty-three minutes was far-and-away the shortest option there. "At least Claudio's drying will be almost done by the time my clothes are washed," I thought, but in the back of my head, I already knew better.
I sat on the spiral staircase reading, and my clothes finished after 53 minutes, as promised. There's no timer on the dryer, so I just had to wait it out. The hour rounds itself out. Then an hour and fifteen minutes. An hour and a half. An hour and forty-five minutes. And shortly thereafter the dryer gives one last shutter and turns off. I run upstairs, knock on Claudio's door and tell him his clothes are done. Hooray! He empties the trough of water (there's no actual drainage system), and I put my whites in the washer and colors in the dryer. After setting my wash for synthetics at 60 degrees (an hour and forty-five minute wash time) and setting the dryer the same way Claudio did, I headed out for a bite to eat and some walking around.
When I got back an hour and forty-five minutes later, the wash was almost done, and, as with Claudio's clothes, the dryer finished a few minutes later. I opened up the door and grabbed my clothes. You know what comes next, right? I'll give you a clue. It rhymes with "schmy schmlothes schmere schmill schmet." Nearly two hours in the dryer and they were soggy as all hell (apparently Dante got it wrong). Still, I took them out threw them in their sack, spreading them out on my bed a few minutes later. (They're still there). Guessing that the half-sun icon on the machine meant "partially dry" and the whole sun icon meant "dry" I set the whites on "I said dry my clothes, woman!" and left.
Nearly three hours later, I reached into the dryer and retrieved some of the dampest underwear this world has seen since [this is a family blog, but you get the idea].
Three hours! And still wet! My wit could dry those clothes faster.
Ah, but I haven't mentioned the best part of my laundry experience. I met another one of my roommates: Roberto. He's also Italian and speaks very, very little English. But he is a-dorable. He has a master's degree in law (currently working at the Italian Embassy), so I assume he's old enough for it to be not sketchy that I think he's cute, but he's definitely got a bit of that "Bel Ami boy" look. (If you don't know what that means, google it...while nobody's looking...and be prepared to delete your search history.) He'll be there the whole time I will. The city just got a little prettier.
Tomorrow: I write about strange price discrepancies. Don't let me forget.
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