Laundry Day

After ten days in France our clothing selection was severely reduced, so it was laundry day. I told Alice we could just take it to the local dry cleaners (which was in the next town). Her reply: "No, way. It's mostly underwear. I'm not taking underwear to the cleaners, that's just weird." So, off we went to buy detergent and find a laundromat.

The local grocery, Super U, had a small, and I mean small, laundromat out in the parking lot in front of the store. It was next to the carwash and before the gas pumps. We parked next to it and went in to check it out. There were several machines along the back wall. We loaded our clothes into one machine, and opened the top to pour in the detergent.
"How much do I need to add?" asked Alice as she poured in the detergent.
"I don't know, not much." I replied as she continued pouring in detergent.
"Do you think that's enough?" she asked, still pouring detergent. "I can't see how much is going in, because it just flows on into the tub."
"I think that's enough."

She put the top back on the detergent. There was a money receptacle along the side wall. By pushing a button that corresponded to the number on the washing machine and then depositing money, four euros,  the washer came alive and went to work. We had selected a laundry detergent that had a fresh smell.

Fifteen minutes later, we pulled out the clothes and threw them into the dryer (or what we thought was a dryer). I selected the numbered button, slid in 2 euros, 4 euros, 6 euros, finally after depositing 8 euros the machine gave a shutter and started. It started alright, it started pumping water onto our clothes. It was no dryer, just a bigger washer!

"Stop, stop, stop," Alice cried, pulling on the handle to open the machine, the door was locked. She hit it on top, she hit it on the front, and she finally hit a button to cancel the wash.
"Ooooh, they're all wet!"
I couldn't help myself, I laughed a long belly roll of a laugh. "Just part of the adventure."
Fortunately, I still had more coins and we were able to feed the money wall another eight euros to dry our clothes, which took a lot longer, since they were now ringing wet.

Still not dry.

For days after our laundry experience, our clothes smelled so strong of laundry detergent that we could hardly stand them. We even smelled like soap after we took our clothes off.
"Honey, I think we used too much detergent."