It’ll All Come Out In The Wash

My roommate during my freshman year of college grew up fairly rich and spoiled but, thankfully, not as entitled as some kids in her position can get. Despite our different lifestyles, we generally got along; we had our differences, but we were able to respect each other’s personal space as much as possible while being crammed in a typical college dorm room.

For the first month of school, she would go home to her parents’ house every weekend with all of her dirty laundry. I didn’t think anything of this at first; lots of college kids don’t know how to do laundry, but apparently, that wasn’t her problem.

She came into our dorm one Thursday afternoon in a bad mood.

Me: “Hey, [Roommate]. Something bugging you?”

Roommate: “My parents are going on vacation this weekend.”

Me: “Cool for them. Where are they going?”

Roommate: “It doesn’t matter. They’re not going to be home, and I can’t go with them.”

Me: “Your first weekend on campus! If you need ideas on things to do, I can see if there’s anything fun going on.”

Roommate: “I don’t care about that! I’ll find something to do. But how am I going to wash my clothes?”

Me: “There’s a laundry room down in the basement. I can show you where it is if you’ve never been down there, and I can show you how the machines work if you don’t know what to do.”

Roommate: “I know how to wash them; I do my own laundry at home. I just can’t wash my clothes here because what if someone takes them?”

Me: “I don’t think anybody cares. As long as you get your clothes out of the machine right away when they’re done, all the girls in the building are good about not messing with other people’s stuff.”

Roommate: *Scoffing* “Really, [My Name]? My shirts all cost at least $60. All of my jeans are around $150. What if someone steals them to sell them on Craigslist or something?”

Me: “If you’re really concerned, there’s a table and a few chairs in the laundry room. You can always bring your laptop with you and sit down there. I do that sometimes if I don’t feel like going up and down the stairs that many times.”

She gave me a groan but decided to let me show her down to the laundry room. I showed her the machines and the table and chairs.

Roommate: “I guess I can wash them here, but it’s so dark, and those chairs are so uncomfortable. I couldn’t stand sitting down here for ninety minutes. Maybe you can sit down here and watch my clothes for me since you already do that anyway? I can probably pay you $10, and you can use your detergent and dryer sheets so I don’t need to buy anything?”

Me: “I’ll do that on one condition. You have to come down with me to set up the washing machine the way you want it, and then you have to come down ninety minutes later to take your clothes out of the dryer. I can switch them over from the washing machine to the dryer if you tell me what settings you want the dryer on.”

She agreed to that deal, and she actually held up her end of the deal. Every month or so, her parents would go on vacation, and I would get an easy $10 to “guard her clothes” while I washed my own laundry. I also got a private, quiet ninety minutes of study time because we always did our laundry on Saturday morning before anyone else in the building was awake enough to do laundry. Not a bad deal in my opinion.