Wash Day Blues

Switching from our delightful hotel to our new self-catering guest house on the Isle of Man has its advantages and its disadvantages.

Advantage: We have a refrigerator in our room and access to a kitchen.

Disadvantage: We've had to say goodbye to those memorable breakfasts.

Advantage: Our bay window has a view to the Irish Sea.

Disadvantage: Our bay window has a view to street lights all night.

Advantage: No maid arrives at an early hour to clean the room.

Disadvantage: No maid arrives.

But the biggest advantage to living in our new abode is that it has a washer and dryer. Goodbye laundry in the sink, hello laundry in the...well, laundry in the mystery machine.

I have not trusted foreign washers since my debacle in 1983 between a washing machine and Hunt's entire collection of sweaters.  We were living in Germany, and my German was sketchy, so I carefully translated the pertinent words on the machine into English.  It came time to choose the water temperature.  Not COLD, WARM, or HOT like a proper washing machine, but just a series of numbers.  So heck, I chose 90.  Nearly the temperature of the human body.  What harm could that do?  Well, who'd have thought all those numbers were in Celsius?  Not me, certainly.  And sweaters washed at 194 F are not happy sweaters.  And husbands having all of their sweaters ruined are not...well, you know the rest.  A coolness between us was inevitable.

So I faced the Isle of Man washing machine head on.  I wouldn't fall for the old Celcius/Fahrenheit switch-a-roo.  Been there, done that.  But major decisions in life still had to be made.  What does that little snowflake mean?  And who washes barbells in a machine anyway?  Should I risk an extra rinse even though the icon indicates my clothes will ignite? 

I punched several buttons and hoped for the best.  And besides the fact that my clothes were held captive inside a locked machine for almost two hours, all turned out pretty well.  (Except who would have thought the '160' on a dryer meant MINUTES?  What are these people thinking?)