The list of ways my old apartment was better than my new place is a very small list, and at the top of that list is the lack of laundry facilities in my new place.  Doing laundry now means going to the laundry room on the other side of the complex or going to a laundromat.  Not a huge deal.  I lived on campus for four years, and Zac and I frequented the small laundromat next to the old place when we didn’t have time to do laundry load by load.  Now laundry time has to be scheduled.  There are no more late night loads because I want to wear a particular shirt the next day.  With school quickly approaching, I knew if I didn’t do laundry this weekend, I’d have to wait two more weeks for clean clothes.

So after church this morning I packed up all the laundry in my house (4 weeks’ worth) and headed to the nearest laundromat.  From the moment I walked in the door, this was a different experience than my college days or the neighborhood laundromat where chances were good you’d run into someone you knew.  No, this was a room full of seasoned laundry professionals desperate to wash as many pounds of laundry as they could in record time.  Each family was a team where the offspring’s main job was to wander the room in search of recently emptied machines and stake their family claim on them before anyone else could.  Trust me, it was scary.

After roaming the room aimlessly hoping to stumble upon an empty machine, an older woman who must have sensed my lack of experience offered up the four machines she was about to empty.  Fearing someone might shove me out of the way and steal my recently acquired machines, I loaded those washers as fast as I possibly could and found a nearby chair where I could keep watch on my possessions.  I’m not quite sure how I would have survived the experience without my iPod, but luckily, that’s a fate I didn’t have to endure.  By dryer time, the crowd in the room had thinned, and I didn’t have to hulk-smash anyone for a machine.  Surprisingly enough, I had everything washed, dried, and folded within ninety minutes of my arrival and left feeling more than a bit victorious.  Next time, I just need to remember Sunday is the busiest time of the week for laundry, and losing an arm isn’t worth smelling nice.

(Had to take a picture after a girl no older than 5 whispered to her mom, “She must really like pink, huh?” )