This has been building for awhile. I’ve only been at this school for nine months, but in that time, I have built up enough rage at your activities that it may last the rest of my existence. Rage? Yes. That is the correct word there. I don’t hesitate to say rage when I address you.

"You" being anyone who has ever touched my clothing. Don’t touch other people’s clothes! If you want a washer, and my clothes are still inside; go ahead, take out my wet clothes and put them on the dirty washer top to wash yours! Not!

First, when you leave wet clothes out like that they develop a disgusting moldy scent. Which, by the way, if a re-wash doesn’t remove that mildew aroma try adding in some vinegar when you wash and it can help cut through that smell because of the acetic acid in the vinegar itself. The cheap, clear white distilled vinegar is the way to go, otherwise, you’ll want to dilute it to avoid any plant dyes discoloring your clothes.

Second, the top of the dryer is not cleaned so that puts a giant smear of germs on top of my freshly washed clothing and lets that nice swirl of dust from the dryers settle onto them as well.

Now, if you’re thinking “Oh, well I’ll just put them in the dryer!” No! Many problems arise with that, too! First, it still has you, a possibly-disgusting stranger, touching my delicates. Second, different people and clothing have rules about what gets dried and on what settings.

For those just throwing things in, take note! Bras shouldn’t be dried in the dryer as the heat and the relative violence of the tumbling around is threatening to their shape. Instead, it’s best to lay them flat to dry so they stay re-shaped into their normal form. Some things can be dried, but might not for preference, like jeans. Jeans that are dried tend not to last as long, but they often do feel softer if dried in the dryer versus air drying. Strappy tops and certain fabrics can have fragile straps or holes in the details that catch and rip within the dryer and some items simply recommend against drying as per the instructions on the tag.

Now, if my clothes have safely made it from the washer into the dryer, same rules apply. Do not take my clothes out of the dryer. Especially! Especially, if they are not yet dry! Each time I have done laundry in the past three months, I have had my wet clothes taken out of the dryer and left on top of the dirty dryer.

Of course, the defense of these laundry room rudeness is, “None of this would happen if you take your stuff out right away!” One, this is not true with a five-minute window of my timer ending as I’ve had my drying clothes, still wet, taken out within three minutes of my run time ending. Secondly, there’s a plethora of reasons for someone to take a little bit longer to get down to the laundry room. For one, we all have more in our lives than laundry. Finishing a page of reading, marking a note down; whatever it is we are doing needs to reach a certain point before we get up. For two, anyone not on the same floor as the laundry room has to trek there. If someone takes a short amount of time after their timer to get down there and deal with their clothes, it is completely sensible.

If they don’t get down there in a sensible manner, how rude! But, here’s the true kicker, when were you taught to be rude in response to rudeness? No matter what someone has done to you, why is the response in the laundry room every time that, “Oh they didn’t get there fast enough so I shrunk their sweater by putting it in the dryer!”

Learn some patience and forgiveness, people of the laundry room. We all have lives and laundry should just be a some non-consequential part of it, not the thing that keeps me up at night.