It was a cold, not-so-dark European night. The wind howled over the city of Rotterdam, a beautiful port town in Holland. An eerie silence prevailed over Hofdijk, a student haven and residence as well as a building soon to become a memorial due to the untimely demise of one of its residents by a plague only known as – The Laundry Machines…
So Yes. Apologies for the drama. But this is exactly how I feel. You know how you feel your worst fear is drowning, or being burnt alive or kidnapped or being mediocre? Well none compares to being harassed by the laundry machines and the laundry system in general. You think I’m exaggerating but wait till you hear my story…
As you know, by now in my job (henceforth referred to as the Leadership Project or LP) I have had the honour of moving across the world to The Netherlands – a beautiful country (in summer) with warm, hospitable people (excluding the waiters and all people who run cafes/restaurants – more on this later). So LP requires me to reside in an absolutely luxurious (in comparison to my previous accommodation) student hostel. It’s fantastic really and there is a sense of community despite living relatively alone. Now, living alone translates also to managing certain basic functionalities of day to day life on your own. Like doing one’s laundry.
Laundry is not complicated anywhere in the world. It’s possibly one of those few things that anyone in the world can do and do well. It’s probably God’s way of making everyone say –I am an Achiever! In my home country for example – All it requires is knowing which clothes you need to wash and then make one simple phone call to the guy who will collect it and return it a few days later-freshly washed and pressed. All for the cost of less than 10 cents a kilo. In Europe however, it’s an exercise in itself.
The first component of this complicated system is the calendar. Due to the fact that an excessive amount of people want to be clean – the 3 washing machines & 2 driers are always in demand. Which means that I first needed to figure out that Maandaag meant Monday and that in this complicated excel sheet of dates and times – I would need to slot my time. Now, luckily for me my job requires some excel skills so its safe to say I learnt them here. The first time I slotted myself in, little did I know that the crafty residents of the building already know that weekends, especially in the afternoon/evening are great times to do laundry and book them way in advance. So I bravely took up the challenge of slotting myself in at 1 am on a weekday. Knowing my exceptional dedication to have clean clothes, of course I did not keep the appointment and fell asleep. This was good as the next day we were learning about how to change the world – a relatively easy topic as compared to something such as say cooking. Now, I slotted another appointment at an GREAT time – Sunday afternoon! I mean I would not be going out, it was raining – a great excuse to stay in and there were others around to take help from! I was winning this race!
Ha Ha! Little did I know what the machines had in store for me… now I did not of course know or my education system did not teach me that if I am washing clothes at one time, I cannot dry them simultaneously. Therefore the trick to this entire system is to take 3 slots for washing and the NEXT 2 slots for drying! If you are reading this you have learnt a valuable lesson! If you already knew this and are thinking Duh! – well let’s talk. (It’s entirely possible it is a Duh moment but I conveniently choose to ignore this point) Of course I took all slots at the same time and so the conniving resident who had allotted washing before me – had scratched out my slots and put his/her own number there! It was like being reminded of my stupidity publicly! Now of course I had lost the best Laundry slot of all time! So this time since I was actually determined (or desperate you decide) to wash my clothes – I took a slot at midnight.
I trekked upstairs to the machines at midnight with a LOT of clothes and the washing power – Hahah! You thought I’d forget didn’t you! Now I loaded carefully one machine with coloured and did everything right until I realized – I forgot the key ingredient! Money! Or the 50 cent coins you need to run this entire thing! I trekked all the way back and then back up with the coins to start the machines. AT this point I finally got it right and the clothes have started going through the washing process. Currently I am waiting for the next part – drying to see what more fate has in store for me. If all goes well; i.e. – they don’t shrink I should be able to sleep at 2 am with washed clothes and a decent amount of sleep before the next morning involving more talk on how to change the world.
HOWEVER! All does not go well as with most things in this story. I returned to the machines only to find that someone had taken all the clothes out of one drier and put in their own clothes! Which meant that either I stay up another 1.5 hours or dry clothes in my room.. which is not an option. So as usual I took the easy route - I figured that no one would be drying their clothes at this insane hour (except truly insane people such as myself) and I put them in the drier and collected them at 7:30 am the next morning. All in all I washed and dried my clothes fro 12:00 - 7 i.e. - 7 hours!
