And now you're going to read about my laundry

I had composed a post earlier this morning about the beach trip, but due to technical difficulties compounded by a pounding on my door saying, "let's go!", it remains stranded on my laptop. Oh well, I try to make these posts modular and unassuming so that chronology doesn't play in, but we'll see how that works out over time.

I had the good fortune of receiving the keys to the apartment of an employee who had recently left along with the go-ahead to take whatever I could use. It's an irregular opportunity to go through someone else's stuff, especially if you haven't known them much at all; being the opportunist I am, I didn't hesitate to have a look around. How much can you tell (or pretend to understand because after all, you're just guessing without much context and going along with some pre-conceived notions) about a person by rummaging through their unwanted belongings? I don't wish to expand beyond that, but here's a random sample of stuff left behind that isn't part of the standard welcoming package:

hand weights
beer bong (labeled "zero" to "hero")
enormous stash of sugar
full pack of menthol cigarettes
paperback copy of sci-fi classic Neuromancer
Taiko drum-master game and accessories for Playstation 2

..and I'm sure half of what was lying around was from the person before him. There's only so much worth shipping halfway around the world.

The most important of the items I found were hangers. I had decided to do all of the laundry and cleaning I put off from last weekend, but this proved to be quite the chore since my clothes are voluminous and the washing machines are anything but. It took 3 machines (unfortunately placed on two separate floors) to do my hamper-full. Attempting to figure out the kanji printed all over the buttons and LEDs on the machine isn't as easy as copy/paste, so I went with the defaults - there's actually a setting that translates to something like "trust me", and has a picture of a smiling washing machine on it. Feeling the computer knew more about the machine than I could, away we went. I watched as it poured about a careful 0.23658 liters (approximately one cup) of water into the base and then began to shake around my dry, stinky clothes and the one wet shirt on top.

I thankfully spotted the "more water" button and, after mashing it until my finger was imprinted with braille, the clothes were respectably soaked and primed for gyration. Although the other washing machines were different models, they still had near-identical layouts. The machines also have dryers fitted over the base at eye-level, but I have long since known them to be inadequate. Holding up a sock and blowing on it would be just as effective. Luckily, there are handy house-wares specifically for this purpose (holding the sock, that is). Think of a matrix of clothes-pins suspended upside down such that you could clip a sock to each one, or even towels, jeans, or underwear with two! I would tell you what it's called, but I didn't have to look up the name in a dictionary before finding it in a store - it naturally catches your eye sitting on a shelf.

This contraption, combined with all of the hangers looted from earlier, allowed me to simultaneously suspend all of my clothing from the line outside my sliding-glass windoor. Of course, I can't see outside any longer, but I'd much rather appear and smell respectable; besides, this way the sun can't wake me up at 5am when I forget to shut the blinds before hitting the sack. This morning, I was pleasantly surprised to find the majority of the shirts already dry and ready to go - maybe I will temporarily re-locate my closet to the clothes-line (being male and on the 2nd floor, I don't have to worry about my underwear not being there when I need it). I can only hope that it won't rain anytime soon.