Laundry: A Hate Story

Let's go back to Monday.  Monday afternoon, while I was unpacking, J took a little trip to the laundry room in our dorm.  Five minutes later, she runs back inside our room and says there was a roach in the washing machine.  For those of you who may not know me very well, roach in a room= I will never ever ever ever enter that room.  Apparently, J is the same way.  So all week, we've been wondering what to do about washing our clothes because obviously neither of us would be going to the laundry room here.

So finally this morning, we decided that it was time.  We couldn't find a self service laundromat all week, so we figured that MAYBE if we went down together it wouldn't be as scary.  Around 6 AM (we missed the Sugarland concert by the way; didn't wake up in time) we carry our dirty clothes down to the dreaded basement laundry room.  We got downstairs and I thought, "well, it's not too bad down here." Then, J said it was even further down. We open the door to the basement and start walking down the damp, dark staircase.  It's completely quiet.  We reach the laundry room, and my imagination just gets the best of me.  I pictured putting my clothes in the machine and a giant roach jumping out and attacking me.  I think J pictured the same thing, because we ended up running back upstairs.

We googled tons of different laundromats, and finally found a self service one about a mile away called "Campus Laundry & Cleaners." Perfect. A mile isn't too far if it's roach-free, and if it's for students then it must be cheap. Right?

Wrong.  Upon arrival, the first thing I look for is the prices.  Get this.  Just try to wrap your mind around this.  I still can't.  $6 for one load of laundry, and 25 cents per 5 minutes of drying. WHAT! Okay, whatever, we're already here, I'll know better next time.  Maybe I can get a security guard to come with me to the dorm laundry room next time (you know, to keep those dangerous killer roaches away.)

So I put in all my quarters- I mean, literally, ALL my quarters. All of a sudden, the door locks, the machine starts, and I haven't put in my clothes yet! I start freaking out because I thought I just wasted $6.  The manager saw me do it and tried to help me but we had a bit of a language barrier:

Me: Oh no! It started! What do I do!
Laundroman: Why you do that? No when you see prewash you HALT!
Me: What!? I don't understand! Wait, wait, what do I do?
Laundroman: You HALT!
Me: I don't understand what you mean!
Laundroman: I do this for you and only you this one time, you do nothing. Go sit down.

I start to walk towards J with my tail between my legs, not understanding how on earth I didn't know how to use a washing machine.

Here I sit with my clean clothes, a sore shoulder from walking a mile back and forth with a full hamper, and the number to call an exterminator for the laundry room.