BEHOLD: The dreaded laundry day strikes again...

Since arriving in Taiwan I would say about 50% of our experiences with laundromats have been a total disaster in one way or another. Laundry day has become a dreaded event, usually put off until the last possible moment. But I think today's experience takes the cake.

This is our first time utilizing the laundromat in our new neighborhood. It's not quite as conveniently located as the last place we lived, in fact it's about a 20 min. walk from our apartment. So Melissa and I waited until we had turned everything inside out for the second time before we embarked on our pilgrimage to the 'Asian Laundry' (as it's so aptly named)

{As a side note, it has gotten very cold here over the past few weeks so our little old landlady dropped in one night, rattled off something in Chinese, and forced the Taiwanese brothers that live nearby to give us some of their heavier blankets. So they obliged. They are more like foam mats with a blanket-like cover than actual blankets. I'm pretty sure one would suffocate if they actually slept under one of these things. They are heavy and dense, and of course they smelled like they'd been in a mold-infested storage closet with moth balls for an eternity. Thus the following events occurred... }

Melissa refused to use her "blanket" because of the smell, so we took it with us to the laundromat. After much debate on how to best handle washing it, Melissa decided to put the entire thing in the big washer, cover AND mat. Within about 2 minutes, we observed that we could no longer see the blanket through the window on the washing machine, it was just a thick white meringue of soap. We also noted an error message popping up every few seconds on the display.

"How much detergent did you add in there Melissa??"

"Ohh boy. Uh, I don't know. I didn't think it was that much, but I stuffed that thing like a sausage."

"Why has the machine been stuck on 11 minutes for the past 8 minutes?"

"Crap."

The machine would barely get through the load, and we knew we'd have a disaster on our hands if we opened the door. Fortunately someone had left a small styrofoam box with a lid (very randomly) in the laundromat, so when the machine finally gave up we opened the door and attempted to scoop as much foam and water into the box and run it out into the street. This of course barely put a dent in the amount of water that poured out of the machine. The floor was now a lake with foamy islands coasting by. Both of us tried to extract the now sopping wet 'blanket' from the machine, which ended in us both getting soaked and slipping all over the floor. We threw it in a rolling basket and decided it would be best to try and wring it out in the street. Problem was that it now weighed about 120 lbs., I never knew anything could hold that much water, it was like a giant bladder. So we rolled the basket behind a parked taxi cab and Mel proceeded to 'smash the grapes Italian style'. We flooded the sidewalk with foam and water. Both of us knew it was only a matter of time before someone would come over and start yelling at us in Chinese, but people just mostly stared. (It's not the strangest thing I've seen happening on the street here)

We decided it was best to flee the scene as soon as possible, so we packed up our stuff and tried to bag up the soggy blanket, of course the bag quickly tore right down the middle. So we decided the best move would be to find an alley and ditch it. So with both of us trying to carry the dripping monstrosity down the street, we found a suitable alley and dropped it. (Not to worry. This is how you dispose of odd garbage here, find a trash can and throw it next to it.)

So now Melissa is back to being blanketless, and I am glad I decided that smelling like moth-balls in the morning was better than trying to wash one of those beasts.

I think we might seek out a different laundromat for next time. I'm not sure we could show our faces at that one again.

*sigh* ...

(photos...)

"smashing the grapes"