Levity, Learning, and Laundry

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen 

This is a mite wordy, but it is light reading.

Although I am going through pain that I could never have imagined, and sometimes wonder about my sanity, good things happen. That grief fog is (in my case) characterized by forgetfulness and distractions.

I have to do my own laundry. Kind people were doing it for me while I was under cardiologist restrictions not to lift more than ten pounds. When I was cleared to ease into going back to work, I started doing laundry. This was one of the many things Charlene did. I watched a video on how to do it.

Washers and dryers very similar to where I live, Unsplash / Douglas Monterrosa

Being alone now and having simple tastes, it is rather easy. I decided that I had time before church, and the laundry center at the apartment complex was open. The grief fog was not too bad and I was feeling a bit more alert. I gathered everything, went over, put in the wash, set my timer, and came back to the apartment. Twenty-some minutes later, it's time for the dryer.

It was raining out, but not too bad.

On my return I saw two people there who were developmentally disabled. (That's the politically correct term, but ICD-10 diagnosis codes F10 and so on sometimes still list mental retardation as a diagnosis.) The woman used to be in the apartment above us, and the younger man is someone I've seen around the place. I said hello and got my clothes in the dryer (a bit rushed, don't want to be late for church). But there was a problem.

From my previous visit, I knew that some of the dryers didn't work, so I tried the upper left dryer. It took my money but didn't start The guy said that it was broken, and he said he was going to get tape. Huh? It turns out that he knew a trick to fool it into thinking the door was closed, and that was the reason for tape. He MacGyvered it and my money was not lost after all. Never be too proud to learn from someone, you savvy that

Back at the apartment again with forty-five minutes to wait, I began to schedule posts for The Question Evolution Project. Suddenly, I remembered that I put everything in the dryer, including things that I prefer to put on hangers to dry. Back to the laundry center.

The dryer was off but the timer was running because the tape had given way. I put the tape on again and started the dryer again. Back to the apartment, and I grabbed black plastic tape. Returning to the laundry center, I put my tape on the thing to fool the dryer.

When it was time to remove the clothes, the dryer was shut off. My tape had come loose as well, so the timer had run out and I had partially dry clothes to deal with. (You're laughing, aren't you? That's part of the reason this article is here.) Not enough time to try again before I had to leave, so I took them home.

We had tucked away a collapsible wooden drying rack like this one, so I filled that up quick-like. Charlene must have tossed the other one, or it wore out and broke. So I dragged out the metal "multi-use" cart, which has plenty of space for air circulation. That became pretty much covered with clothes, too.

After church, I was walking to the car and heard a blue jay, and remembered how Charlene loved her birds. I sobbed while walking but got it under control to drive home.

When I came in the door, the downstairs potheads were stinking up the place. Since I didn't want the clothes to pick up those smells, I did what Charlene would have done: Turn on the air purifier. That gave me a bit of drying help because its fan was blowing on the clothes.

Somewhere around seven hours later my partially-dry clothes were ready to be put away.

So this series of events was a bit funny, had a reminder of something I believe (learn from others), and a bit of sorrow. Other people have laundry day, I had laundry part-of-the-morning. Hey, I found the tutorial video again! More information than  I needed, but it helped.