I hate laundry!!!

Or maybe it is laundromats either way, I'm not a fan.

M thinks that the laundromat philosophy is great! You can leave the laundry until you have absolutely nothing left to wear and then wash it all in 2 hours and spend the next three days folding it! Then you are done for the next month or so, depending on the amount of underwear you have.

I on the other hand, would prefer to have my own washer and dryer. That I could use whenever the mood or need arose. I could do a load here a load there and then sit down and fold it in a matter of minutes. And, if I didn't have time to throw it into the dryer I could wait an hour or two, maybe more, without having to worry about someone stealing my cloths, pulling them out and setting them somewhere. It is all in my control.

So, here at the Bass M has won this battle and we use the laundry in the basement. We honestly do not have room for a washer and dryer in our 600 sqft, and boy do I miss them. M and I have worked out a system here at the Bass, he washes and dries and I fold and try not to bitch too much about how he mixed up the colors, washed at the wrong temperature, etc. And for the most part it works for us. But sometimes the system breaks down.

See, I have this other small problem. Keys don't work for me. Yes, I know, you insert it in the correct lock and turn it and the door magically opens. Not for me, they don't turn in the lock, or I loose them. Although I secretly think they run away and hide on me. Every single door in the Bass is keyed. There are a couple hundred people living here, using their keys day after day and the locks have become super-screwy. I can open my apartment door, a few of the outside doors, but that is it. If I don't walk up to one of the doors that I have figured out how to finagle. I'm stuck. Luckily for me, the laundry room is never locked. Not so with the business center.

Yes, all of that background does lead up to a story.

This morning I get woken up twice by text messages from M. My phone chirps and the cats start running then it takes me forever to get them settled back down so I can go to sleep. The first text was at 5:40 AM. No sleeping in for Zilla. I end up talking to M about 8, his plane to the ATL is delayed and he won't be in until closer to 11:30. Drat! I thought I had gotten out of doing the laundry. "We" decide that I should get it started so that it would be done and I would have clean clothes in San Antonio next week. So, I ask M how much is on the laundry card, he says $10 or $11. So, as long as I didn't do too much I wouldn't have to try to open the business center door.

I gather up about four loads of essentials. Packed them in a couple of duffles after trashing my laundry cart. Another saga in the life of Zilla and M. And went down to the basement in my pjs at about 9AM. Got down there checked the card $6.25, great. I have 4 loads at $1.25 to wash and $1.00 to dry, I'm at $9. I'm going to have to do battle with the business center door in order to refill the card. Happy Sunday Zilla!!

Well, nothing I can do about it. I did say I had 4 loads of essentials. I piled them in the washers got it started and prepared to do battle. I ran upstairs, grabbed my spare keys, maybe they would work better, and some cash. I rode the elevator back down and started fussing with the lock, switched keys, fussed some more. Pulled the door tightly closed, pushed it as open as possible, jiggled the handle. Tried it all again. Maybe I could jimmy it with the laundry card, nope wrong kind of door. After 10 minutes I had no luck. What is a girl to do? Maybe I could stalk the lobby and see if anyone was up to help me. I ran upstairs and looked around. All the doors were dark, after all it was now 9:15 or so on a Sunday morning. If you are not in church or climbing, you should damn well be sleeping and not madly trying to do laundry. I looked at the bookshelves in the lobby, found a couple of good ones, while not a soul stirred. Now, remember I'm still in my pjs, in this case sweatpants and the '08 boatrock comp shirt, looking very attractive, let me tell you! After finding the books, I decided I really didn't want to see anyone anyway. I ran downstairs tried the lock one more time, nope, nada, nothing. And you thought this story would have a happy ending!

When the 4 loads were done, I crammed as many of the essentials into the one dryer I could afford. and brought the remaining clothes upstairs. I currently have 7 pairs of pants hanging in the shower, a rather large load in the dryer, which hopefully will be mostly dry, and a bruised thumb from trying to get into the business center. Better luck next time!

Actually, I think M may be doing the laundry for awhile and I may have to find a course on how to open doors with keys. Do you think that is offered somewhere?