The thing about the washing machine

I should probably explain something about washing machines to my American readers. Europeans don’t do laundry like we Americans. Not even civilized Western Europeans do laundry like we Americans. First of all, Europeans don’t have the clothes we Americans do. Moreover, we learned that there was a lot of waste in laundering. Hot water was inconsistent, space to hang things to dry was limited, and doing laundry was generally a pain in the neck. And while underwear is indeed considered dirty every day, we wore wool socks that were good for at least two days, and jeans often could go weeks without really needing a wash. Sounds gross, but believe me, we really were the sweetest smelling people in town. It helped that we brushed out teeth and didn’t smoke or bathe in vodka.

Part of the reason it took so long for us to get a washing machine was because they were hard to come by. Dryers as Americans know them were non-existent. There was an agitating washing contraption that was easily available, but it made a gigantic mess and didn’t really clean anything. The other option was to send the laundry out for a per-kilo fee. This we did when we had big stuff like blankets and sleeping bags, and after a few rounds of washing sheets, jeans and towels by hand we would send those out for cleaning as well, but this took time (like a week), wasn’t convenient, and had other drawbacks that I’ve mentioned before. I thought it was easier to just fill the bathtub and scrub against a washboard in the orange water.

My college-aged brother in law came to visit for a very long month while I was pregnant and feeling nauseous all the time. (Lucky him.) He came with more stuff for a month than my husband and I had combined. About a week into his trip, I asked him if he had any laundry for me to do. I almost threw up all over him when he handed me four pair of jeans, about 18 socks, gobs of boxer shorts and more t-shirts than I knew one man could own. Really? I said. He just looked at me incredibly as if to say, how dare you think I can possibly wear this pair of jeans two days in a row! He clearly didn’t realize what this endeavor entailed or that washing jeans was one of the biggest pains in the ass on earth. But soldier on I did, and he finally got the message when it took five days for all of his clothes to dry and they weren’t warm and fluffy or smelling like Bounce. In the end, he DID end up having to wear the same pair of jeans two (maybe even three!) days in a row. Šausmigs!

It was a regular site to enter someone’s bathroom and see clothes lines hung above the tub. We had that, too, and once in a while socks or shirts would spill out over the radiators or kitchen chairs, but by the time a third person was living full time with us, even though he was tiny, laundry became the bane of my existence. Fortunately, Pampers could be found all the time, even at the local kiosk with cigarettes, bananas, and beer, but there are only so many spit-up rags one can deal with on a daily basis, and unlike jeans and wool socks, those COULD NOT be stretched another day! So after a little research and digging, we found an Indesit automatic washing machine with a built-in heated centrifuge (the closest thing to a tumble dryer). It was about the size of a dishwasher and held about ¼ of a regular American load of laundry. It took almost an hour and a half to cycle through each load, but it was great. Clothes wouldn’t come out completely dry, but hanging them out for an hour sure beat hanging them out for days.

In Alūksne, the washing machine was hooked up in the bathroom, but in Riga, there was a special spot all its own under the counter in the kitchen. Very civilized. Yes, even in the kitchen, very civilized. And in Riga, I no longer had damp clothes hanging from every door and pipe—I bought a drying rack! This may have been the best 8 Lats I ever spent in Riga. I could hang TWO loads of clothes from this thing, and it only took up as much space as an ironing board. Because of the limited capacity of the washing machine, the only way to keep up was to do laundry every day, so my drying rack was a permanent fixture at the end of our spare room in Riga.

That thing has travelled with me all this time and I still get people asking me where I found such a fantastic drying rack…ha ha. As I write, my fabulous Latvian drying rack is holding “delicates” and a bath mat. Old habits die hard.