Laundry. Some people enter college with years of laundry experience- unfortunately, it seems as though the vast majority of freshman students at Duquesne never touched a washer or dryer prior to last fall. Here is a list of characters you’ll find while attempting to do laundry at Duquesne:
The Washer/Dryer Hog
This person knows are six washers and six dryers in the laundry room. This person also knows there are around 300 people in that part of the building who need to wash their clothes every week. However, this person could care less. They need to have their darks in one machine, their lights in another; they need their sheets in the third machine, and their delicates in the fourth- and all of this must be done at the same time for their own convenience.
The Thief
The thief has no shame. They enter the laundry room, notice an article of clothing laying out to dry and think, “Wow! What a nice dress. I’d probably look good in that.” -and then proceed to take it. They’ll probably wear it the next day. They’ll probably even wear it in front of you.
The Person Who Never Sets a Timer
I’ll sit patiently, waiting for my turn to use a dryer. When the dryer stops, I look around for someone to hand the machine off to me, and have the whole transition run smoothly.
This often does not occur.
I usually give them about ten to fifteen minutes before intervening myself. However, the thought of someone catching me removing their clothes from a dryer terrifies me. Tragically, when this person does finally return for their dry clothes, they often have another load to put in the dryer, and I am left dyer-less once again.
The Confused Damp Clothing Owner
This person, even after six months of doing laundry, does not realize that every time they dry their clothes, they have the machine set to the lowest possible heat setting. They walk into the laundry room, all set to fold their dry clothes. However, to their utter shock and disbelief, their clothes are still damp. How could this be? What went wrong? They sigh in disappointment and continue to set the timer for another ninety minutes- with the machine still on the coldest setting.
The Passive Aggressive One
This character intimidates the characters listed above. Did you forget to remove your clothes from the dryer? That’s okay because this person is standing right next to your dryer with their arms crossed as you walk in an hour after your dryer finished. You’ll try to be polite. You’ll say, "You can use my dryer when I'm done if you want,” to lighten the mood and pretend to be oblivious to the situation. It won’t work. They’ll watch you, angry and straight faced, as you frantically remove your things from the dryer.
The Selfish One
This character pulls the classic move of taking somebody's clothes out of a machine when it is clearly not finished with washing/drying the clothes. They do this because they never learned how to wait their turn and lack basic human decency.
The Professional
This character uses one dryer and one washer to complete their load of laundry. They set a timer and they always arrive on time. They would never steal anyone’s clothing. They know how to properly use the machines. I think people should strive to be more like the professional.
Overall, I firmly believe that if students took the time to learn how to be courteous in the laundry room, life would be a little simpler!
