The science of laundry day

You know, I don’t think I’ve ever really appreciated how complex a washing machine could be until recently.

By complex I mean how many actual settings there are on the damn things.

Perhaps this is because I have never really done as much laundry as I have over the past few weeks.

It’s not just laundry either it’s been all kinds of housework. And what’s worse is that I’m beginning to think that I might even be getting to like it.

Well, okay, that might not actually be true. But I’m beginning to not dislike it as much as I used to and that’s kinda the same isn’t it?

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I’ve never picked up a floor brush or washed a dish or even did the laundry before, it’s just that until the past few weeks they were not quite as important.

By that I mean if there was laundry to do, I’d just throw it in the machine, hit the button and wait until I could hear the utility room wall vibrate from the machine’s spin cycle to know it was time to go take it out.

But last week I found myself looking at all the buttons on the machine and wondering what they were all for.

Well, okay, there were only four buttons and one of those was to switch the machine on, but there was also a wee wheely thing that, I’m pretty sure now decides what temperature clothes will be washed at.

And yes, I had noticed that this wee wheely thing was on the machine long before last week, but no, I never ever touched it.

As far as I can remember as well, the clothes I had washed before had always turned out okay, so I assume that whatever setting the wheely yoke was on, was perhaps some kinda average.

But here’s the thing, there is no real average when it comes to clothes, because there is some real scientific stuff going on.

You see as I investigated further, I began to remember that the labels on clothing weren’t just for telling what size a garment was, they also had wee symbols on them relating to the washing and care of the said garments.

And, a bit like a child matching up those wee wooden shapes into one of those block jigsaw puzzles, I began to sort through the laundry checking labels against the settings on the machine.

It worked too. I found a whole range of temperatures on a whole range of clothes that matched a whole range of settings on the machine.

And it was then I realised that, once again, I had a problem.

You see, before all of this laundry was simple. Sort the whites from the colours and then throw them in the machine without touching any buttons except the on button.

But after this scientific sorting, I found I had twenty-three different bundles, the biggest of which had just three items in it.

I think it was at that stage that I realised that there was no point in making laundry more complicated than it needed to be, so I threw together a couple of piles of clothes, put the wheely thing back to where it was at the start and threw in a load.

Sitting afterwards with a mug of coffee, I reckoned that if I spent too much time working out the science of washing clothes, I’d probably go ‘clean mad’ altogether.

I mean I didn’t even go into any of the powder versus tablets versus liqui tabs versus liquids scenarios, not to mention the whole fabric conditioner debates.

And then of course there is always what comes after - the dryer.

That just brings up terrible memories altogether. 

In fact last time I used it, I ended up seeing a shrink…