Quirks of ship life: The Laundry Dance

Our laundry room has 10 washer/dryer sets, and everyone is allowed only one load per person per week.  You have to sign up on a time sheet and signing up for 10am will give you the washer at 10am and the dryer at 11am.  If you’re the type that runs life a bit behind, there’s a 10-minute grace period for washers; after that, you lose your machine.

What this schedule means is that all day, on each hour, the laundry room has about thirty people in it.  The ten people taking their clothes out of the dryers, the ten people transferring their clothes from the washers to the dryers, and the ten people waiting to put their clothes in the washers… with very little space, I call this “the Laundry dance”.  The room is not huge, and with the big table in the center, everyone carrying baskets or bags of laundry, and a couple ironing boards out… it gets crazy. And don’t even think about being late if someone is waiting behind you, or you might you’re your wet clothes in a basket somewhere, your name being cursed under the breath of the person who got to (awkwardly) remove your underwear from the machine so they could get their own started.  Friendships can be made or destroyed in the laundry room!

The Laundry room at a non-busy time!
 

Loving life on a ship!  Krissy