Laundry Jerks

Tonight, I have to do laundry. I'll pause here for the appropriate responses of horror that follow that statement.

I've noticed, whenever people say they have to do laundry or they did laundry the night before, it causes the same response as though they had said they had a limb removed or were hit by a car.

Think about it.

"Hey, Jane, what'd you do last night?"

"Laundry."

*gasp* "Ugh, that sucks! I HATE laundry!"

"I know, right?"

...and so on.

But the thing is, laundry is a relatively painless chore as far as chores go. You shove it in the machine, turn a knob, press a button, and come back in 40 minutes; then repeat until things are clean and dry. You totally have time to do other things, like read books and eat cookies other chores.

There are circumstances that do make laundry more painful, though. They are thusly.

1.) Having to go up and down stairs to do laundry.

2.) Having to pay for laundry; inversely having to find enough quarters.

3.) Having a disproportionate number of people to washers/dryers.

4.) Laundry jerks.

I, luckily enough, have all four challenges in my laundry life. Most people who live in an apartment building or a college dorm have to deal with several of these unfortunate factors.

My washers and dryers are on the ground floor while I live on the second floor, stairs. Each washer and dryer costs $1.25 per load, paying for laundry. There are four washers and four dryers, there are more than four people living in my apartment building. And finally, laundry jerks.

What is a laundry jerk, you ask? Why, let me explain. A laundry jerk is a person who decides to do laundry, puts their clothes in the washer, and then NEVER comes back. Okay, "never" is maybe a slight exaggeration, but they definitely don't come back within the half hour or hour it takes to run the washer or dryer. They leave their clothes in there for at least an hour after it was finished; putting poor, anxiety riddled people like me in a predicament.

I am stuck in the laundry purgatory of waiting for all of eternity for them to come back to their forgotten laundry; or be insanely paranoid that they will come in just as I am putting their clothes on top of the washer and we'll have that awkward moment of one stranger caught holding the laundry of another stranger. Then I might have to TALK to someone. No. Unfortunately, I've been known to wait upwards of 50 minutes in the laundry room for a dryer or washer to open up, convinced that the moment I leave the person will return.

Tonight is laundry purgatory. There have been poor, damp clothes in a washer for 3 hours already; another load in the dryer completely dried and just waiting to be brought home.

Dear Laundry Jerks,

If you are not responsible enough to remember to get your clothes after the allotted washer or dryer time, then you are not responsible enough to own clothes. I will confiscate them until you have proven yourself to be able to at least pretend to be an adult for two hours; I somehow have managed to.

If you want to see your clothes again, they will be deposited in an undisclosed location and a small ransom will be required to get them back...preferably, the ransom will be paid in laundry quarters. Please, get your shirt together.

-Elayna