Before there were washing machines….

So I wash my underwear by hand. In the shower. Inspired by the person who first made me realize this is really the least time consuming and money saving way to do it, I call it: “Laundry, Celenia-style.” You can really wash anything in the shower. Ensemble, while you are in the process of showing is obviously the best time to do it.  You can rub your soapy panties together as your hair is being rinsed of shampoo (and for those people not like my love Zach, even conditioner. It is my mission, fyi, to get this guy to use conditioner on a fairly regular basis. He has beautiful hair but is too much of a hippie to allow all those chemicals to work their magic.)

I started doing this, if you haven’t already guessed, while I was living in Burkina. Even though I found a lady to do my laundry, people in Burkina just don’t touch other people’s underwear.  Gross.  And, well, it was hot and I was too lazy to be bent over a row of buckets soaping and rinsing and repeating until all my undies were clean. And by all I mean only my panties. I ended up burning some bras before I left because they were too dirty to ever wear again.

(I stole this picture from my friend Diana…I believe this is one of her students, but I could also be making them up.)

This story comes up because I’m currently an RA (This doesn’t stand for Research Assistant, because that would mean I’m working) for a high school debate camp at UofM, whose duties primarily consist of making sure the campers don’t do drugs/have sex/and especially both at the same time. So I’m guarding the laundry room area (to make sure none of them stick a cat in the dryer or something), and I see that on Day 4 some girls are already doing laundry. So I inquire what they may be washing, and of course it is their “delicates”. I take this as my prime opportunity to inform them of Celenia-style laundry, and they looked at me like I just came back from Africa or something. They then proceeded to ask me how does one dry their “delicates” after one has *gasp* hand-washed them. Sadly, I’m still readjusting to American sarcasm.  To my disappointment, sincerity came out instead of something along the lines of “The dryer fairy.” Well, I’m still adjusting.