Pioneer fail

When I lived in England, there was no clothes dryer in the house. There was a tiny washer that fit under the kitchen counter and took approximately four hours to wash a shoe-box-sized load of laundry.

And yet. I lived. Nay, I thrived. I used drying racks and hung my laundry out on the line in the back garden while the birds twittered and took care of things pioneer-style and wondered why on the earth I ever even thought I needed a dryer in the first place.

So when my clothes dryer broke a few weeks ago, I called my handy neighbor, who, kind man that he is, said he could come fix it. He immediately called around and found the part we needed and was going to pick it up for us and take care of everything. Only then he got really busy. And then he got really sick. And then he got better, but had to get caught up on his actual paying jobs. So it's taking a little while. I thought I could just pioneer it, again, some more, and reflect on how proud my British brothers and sisters would be at the spoilt American learning to deal with American-style hardships (ie, my garage only has room for two of my SUVs, etc.)

Except . . . the circumstances are a little bit different, this time around. This time around I am responsible for cleaning the clothes and towels and sheets of three people, not just one. And one of those people tends to pee and poop and barf on his stuff. The other person is a baby. All this means more clothings. This time I do not have an outdoor clothesline. I just have one drying rack from IKEA and a shower curtain rod. I can't wash a new load until the one on the rack finishes drying, but the 10 pair of black socks that I hung up four days ago are still wet, people. (Note: I blame GH and his love of wearing thick, black, crew socks to work instead of the cool argyle fancy man socks that I would like to be buying him--I bet those things would be dry by now. It's like wearing towels on your feet, dude.) I went out and bought a bunch of underwear just so I don't have to keep up on the whites. (And yeah, I needed to buy more anyway but the timing here was quite helpful.)

I came home from work the other night to see that GH had helped by hanging up the recently-washed laundry. The drying rack was full, so was the curtain rod, and there were wet baby clothes draped over open cupboard doors, the open lid of the washing machine, and pretty much any other surface that seemed available. The wet clothes hanging all over the apartment make the air cold and damp, so I actually do feel like I'm back in England a little bit (just, you know, without the hedgerows and cream and Britishers). Am pretty sure any electricity savings from not using the dryer have been negated by how much harder our heater has to work.

He says he is coming this morning, and I've baked blueberry muffins from scratch to give him if he does come. If he doesn't, then hey. More muffins for me. If I eat enough then my clothes will all get too small and there won't be any point washing them.

Win, win!