A Laundry Quandary – Servanthood Gone Awry

This past Saturday was the first spent in town in over a month. As little household chores are completed during the work week, our apartment followed suit in the second law of thermodynamics, gradually increasing in entropy with each passing week of neglect. As such, I was looking forward to doing some deep cleaning with a full bottle of Windex (my family’s agent of choice) and a dozen rolls of paper towels at my disposal. I had my ipod all charged up and ready to go, my hair (in great need of washing) pulled back and my cleaning clothes on, tie-dyed t-shirt and all. I was even sporting tennis shoes. I meant serious business. I had lofty goals.

For the most part, I really don’t mind cleaning. I don’t particularly enjoy the frequency it requires for an orderly home, but I love the finished product. As such, though I want to be a good, fruitful wife in maintaining our home, quite honestly, a large measure of my motivation is somewhat selfish, not entirely servanthood at its heart. But there is an important clarification that must be made. “Cleaning” refers to toilets, showers, floors, vacuuming, dusting, dishes, picking up, etc., whereas, in my world, laundry has its own category. It didn’t used to be this way – I had no prior feelings of animosity toward this specific chore. Since being married, however, I suspect my feelings may be morphing, owing simply to the sheer volume and speed in which it accumulates. The main culprit – my husband. Though not entirely responsible for the masses of unwashed clothes, I am still amazed that his clothing contributions outweigh mine 2:1 over the same amount of time.

We have now our first premise – we have a lot of clothes to wash. One might suggest simply doing laundry more frequently to lighten the established clothing burden. I agree. I would love to do that. However, there are underlying factors that complicate this desire. Living in a residence hall, I share the building with 280 other students. Together, we share 8 washers and dryers, 2 on each even-numbered floor. This was not much of an issue when I was single – slightly inconvenient, but definitely doable. Being married and doubling the amount of dirty clothes, however, complicates things. It’s often hard to find a time when one or both units are available for use. I have discovered windows of time which generally work, but if not, it usually translates into holding off for another week. Thus, doing weekly loads is sometimes not feasible and bi-weekly loads (my preference) impossible. This doesn’t even factor in the weekends which we are gone, occurring fairly often and also prolonging laundry.

We’ve now established our heavy laundry load and the inconsistency in weekly washings. Less significant is the elevator issue. It’s so insignificant, in fact, that I’ve only experienced this inconvenience 3 times in my (almost) 2 years of residence. However, last Saturday, it was a pertinent issue, contributing to my frustration.

I digress, though I think the above is necessary to fully grasp the context of the laundry quandary. As previously mentioned, I had not been in town for about 5 straight weekends. I usually do the laundry, and usually do it on weekend mornings. However, I had slept in and got a later-than-planned start, though it was glorious to sleep! Jeremy was out of town at an overnight retreat, and I wanted him to come home to a clean apartment with all his clothes freshly laundered and folded (though he’s pretty particular in how he likes his clothes folded, and I have yet to perfect his technique). I kid you not, our apartment was a disaster. At the risk of embarrassment, I will admit there wasn’t much floor to be seen in our bedroom – most of it covered by clothes. Jeremy has had an incredibly busy month, including some traveling, and had piles of clothes strewn about the room, most dirty, though he had still not put away the clean clothes I had washed 3 weeks ago. I wondered exactly what he had been wearing, as it looked to me like every article of clothing he owned was on the floor. As a result, I thought I would try to serve him in washing and folding them all – a large undertaking from a girl with growing animosity towards laundry. Let it be noted I had started with a well-intended heart of service, acknowledging the risk of frustration present in every laundry attempt and wanting to proceed forth anyway.

It took me a fair amount of time to even gather and sort them all. Once I had, however, I soon realized I was not going to be able to do this in a matter of a few hours. I had two overflowing hampers. I left one in the apartment, and proceeded to struggle forward out the door and in the direction of the elevator, only to find it broken. The other alternative: stairs. I arrived at the laundry room on 2^nd at 1pm to both free washers! It was so exciting! After stuffing them to the brim, I returned in 30 minutes to transfer them to the dryers, but both were in use. I debated going up to 4^th, but upon picking up the hamper with now waterlogged clothes, reconsidered. It was really heavy. To satisfy my curiosity, I ran up there sans hamper and found the same situation. I was not going to carry the clothes up to 6^th or 8^th, even if dryers were free. I contemplated taking the odd floor elevator to 5^th or 7^th and walking up a flight of stairs, but at this point, lacked the drive to do it. My desire to serve was fading fast (I had already compromised in my decision to save the other hamper for another day). Jeremy suggested later that I could have taken the odd elevator to 7^th or 9^th and walked down the stairs, adding that most of the 8^th and 9^th floor residents were with him on the retreat, leaving a high probability of available dryers. This clear oversight and lack of common sense on my part did not reduce my frustration by any means.

The dryers on both floors (2^nd and 4^th) pretty much stayed in use all day. Every time I would come and check availability, I found the person previously washing their clothes was now drying them before I had a chance to throw mine in. With each unsuccessful attempt, I found myself growing more agitated and irritated – but toward Jeremy, of all people. And he wasn’t even around. It’s not the first time this has happened, but I still find its irony striking. I start with a desire to serve, and when things don’t go smoothly as planned, grow angry and frustrated at the very person I want to serve. Maybe that’s not the definition of irony in its truest form, but regardless –well-intended servanthood gone so easily awry. I don’t have much longevity, and am still a work in progress by the grace of God. Sanctification through something as ordinary and mundane as laundry! I thank both the Lord and Jeremy for their patience with me.