{"id":96,"date":"2008-10-25T17:47:04","date_gmt":"2008-10-25T21:47:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/?p=96"},"modified":"2008-10-25T17:47:04","modified_gmt":"2008-10-25T21:47:04","slug":"the-wash-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/the-wash-post\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wash Post"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am still away and still receiving calls for help from my dearly beloved. Last night it was the wash that required five urgent phone calls to get my urgent attention.
\nWe don\u2019t own a washing machine. Actually, our apartment is not even set up for one. Instead, there is something in our building called \u201ctv\u00e4ttstuga<\/strong>.\u201d Despite the name, it\u2019s not a stuga at all, but a normal laundry room in the basement. In order to do the laundry, the tenants need to book their laundry times on a special board.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In our building, we only get two-hour slots, and you can only book one slot at a time. With four washing machines this shouldn\u2019t be a problem, but if two of them are broken at any given time and with the majority of tenants not knowing how to use the booking system (what can I say, it\u2019s a little foreign colony here), then yes, problems do arise. More often than they should.<\/p>\n

My dearly beloved does know how the booking system works, because I write down all booked wash times on our big wall calendar in the kitchen. So when the phone rang right before 6PM yesterday, I knew what was up.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo I have to do the wash?\u201d<\/em> It\u2019s the same old story every time I\u2019m away. And trust me, I\u2019m not away that often. And besides, I like my laundry done in a certain way, so needless to say, I\u2019m the one who always does it. Dearly beloved has enough socks and underwear to last him for at least a month, and enough shirts to look clean and presentable for about 3 weeks.<\/p>\n

His next phone call came from the laundry room.
\n\u201cBut the instructions on all the machines are only in Swedish!\u201d<\/em> He seems genuinely surprised every time he notices it. Granted, he only goes to tv\u00e4ttstuga<\/strong> about once a year and he does have a short memory, but still\u2026 This is Sweden, what did he expect? Instructions in Swahili?<\/p>\n

I told him that on the wall, there is a set of posters with pictures, which are easy to understand and easy to follow.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nHe somehow managed to follow them, because the next phone call came about 45 minutes later. The washing cycle just finished. We have a stand-alone centrifuge there as well, but I prudently neglected to tell him about it. For his own safety, mainly.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cHow do I dry the stuff?\u201d<\/em> The tumble dryer didn\u2019t seem to work. I vaguely recalled it had been broken since last week, so that much was true. And using our temperamental drying cabinets can be a challenge.<\/p>\n

Drying cabinets annoy me, I admit it. I\u2019ve been spoiled by industrial-strength tumble dryers with the capacity to dry piles of laundry the size of medium elephants, or at least king size duvets. So when our sole piece-of-doodoo tumble dryer doesn\u2019t work, I simply don\u2019t do the wash. It\u2019s not just the effort required to hang all those wet clothes on the bars \u2013 a major PITA in itself, but the sheer waste of energy that goes into making those contraptions work. I did the math, granted, it was \u201chousehold\u201d math and the results were highly unscientific, but\u2026 a full load that fits into one tumble dryer will take up three drying cabinets. That is painfully obvious especially when drying bulkier items.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that one drying cabinet is more energy efficient than a tumble dryer, but if you need to run three cabinets to do the job, then it looks awfully wasteful to me. And that in a country where we\u2019re practically ordered to replace our light bulbs with more energy efficient versions sounds really bad. (And yes, I\u2019m one of those nuts who are a bit on the radical side when it comes to conserving energy).<\/p>\n

So when my dearly beloved called an hour later once again, this time to tell me that after the drying cycle in the cabinets, the clothes were still wet, I told him to take them all upstairs and hang them up in the bathroom. I bet they will be still hanging there when I get home next week\u2026<\/p>\n

Some useful words:<\/p>\n