Victory!

I think it's time to coin a new phrase and seeing as how this blog reaches literally handfuls of people each week, I can't think of a better place to do it. I propose the phrase "Swiss victory" with the following definition:

• Swiss victory, n., something achieved only in the barest possible terms; an undeniably positive result which still leaves much to be desired.

Recent examples of Swiss victories: my apartment search, buying a bike, being overcharged by the cable company, and now ... Laundry!

Ah, laundry. The white whale to my Captain Ahab; the Captain Kirk to my Khan. My quest to achieve a minimally acceptable laundry situation started the first day I moved into this apartment, and honestly, I would have bet on it outlasting me and leaving me a bitter, destroyed man. Instead, due to a small bit of luck and a bold move on my part, I can now declare victory -- or at least Swiss victory.

Last week, I was doing my laundry in the usual way: I waited until 10 o'clock, then snuck down into the basement to see if the (the, as in, the only one) washing machine was available. Fortunately for me it was and I was able to get one or two loads in before midnight, which I figure is about the latest that I can open and shut the loud basement door without pissing off the neighbors too much. Of course, doing laundry this late at night means that my clothes don't have time to dry -- no real dryer, remember, just a weird hot air blower -- so I end up bringing the wet clothes up to my apartment and then splaying them out on my furniture overnight. On one of my trips to the basement, I happened to see the laundry schedule on the door and I noticed that there was an unusual amount of whiteout and new ink on it. A cursory glance revealed that every other Friday night was now available! Wait, what's that? All day every other Tuesday was available as well? I ran upstairs, got a pen, came back down and boldly wrote my name in.

Fig. 1: The evidence. Why our laundry schedule has a picture of a sick teddy bear is beyond me.

You'll notice that after a couple of days, the concierge (or someone) came by and whited-out my name from the morning time slot, yet didn't actually bother to fill that time with anyone else's name. I'm not sure why she thought I wasn't worthy of the whole day -- plenty of people get a whole day -- but seeing as how I only took the morning out of pure, unadulterated greed, I don't really care that I lost it. Forgetting this minor disappointment, I anxiously awaited the big day.

Thursday evening, I left work (relatively) early and got ready for an all-evening laundrapalooza. This would be my first time using the laundry room without fear that someone would come and chew me out, or without having to worry about working around other people's stuff. It would be glorious! So, I got my first load, headed down the stairs and found ...

Fig. 2: The offending items. I would like the reader to notice the acres and acres of empty space in the laundry room which is curiously unencumbered by washing or drying machines of any type.

somebody's crap all over the room. All the drying lines were taken up with pants, shirts, etc., the drying rack was loaded with socks and underwear, and a bunch of socks and underwear were sitting wet, in the washer. Hooray. To make a long story short, no, no one ever came down and got their stuff, and I never got to confront anyone about violating the newly sacred laundry schedule. I even looked up the French word for "disrespectful" with the hopes that I would catch one of the culprits in the act, but no such luck.

So, seeing as how after my victory I still had to deal with other people's clothes, the only real benefit that I gained by getting an assigned time was the sense of moral righteousness. Now I'm the one who's being inconvenienced by scofflaws, whereas before, I scoffed in the face of those rule-abiding schedule followers and did laundry when I wanted and how I wanted, by god!

Although I finally reached my goal of getting a useful, assigned bi-weekly time to do laundry, it's hard to say that my situation has really improved. Swiss victory!

Can it all be so simple?

It's not exactly a secret that Americans think that Europeans smell bad. OK, it's not a secret either that I think that Europeans smell bad. Just like blind people have heightened senses of hearing, I (in order to make up for my astigmatism, no doubt) have been given a powerful sense for detecting body odor. This gift, though, has been a cruel curse through four years at Harvey Mudd College and then another half dozen surrounded by grad students with less than ideal grooming habits. Still, I believe that it makes me an expert in this field, and thus I feel qualified to comment on the situation here. As I only have true first-hand knowledge of the situation here in Switzerland, I will focus my comments on the Swiss, who -- for the most part -- don't smell that bad.

Some (not all) Swiss people smell bad most (not all) of the time because they are living in the frigging dark ages of doing laundry. Here, doing laundry is a chore roughly on par with changing the oil in your car, and thus people tend to do it every three months or three thousand miles, whether they need it or not. This forces them to wear clothes frequently without washing them, which leads to the aforementioned body odor issues. Doing laundry is the root of the problem.

Now, since euro-style (aka front-loading) washers have become more popular in America, I'm sure you're reading this thinking, "oh, Paul's just exaggerating for dramatic effect." Au contraire, mon ami. Let me break down for you the ridiculousness involved in doing laundry here in Switzerland.

First, you don't just wander down to the laundry room. You begin by making an appointment. I have to call my landlady up during business hours and ask her when the next available time is to do laundry. She always wants me to take a morning time slot, as those are the least in demand. When I explain that I have work and can only do laundry at night or on the weekend, she becomes agitated and tries to convince me to just do laundry some morning. After much back and forth, I am usually granted the rights to the laundry room from 5PM to 8PM on a weekday night in the following week. Arrangements are then made for someone to drop off "the key" (there's only one) in my mailbox when it's my turn.

Here's where the fun begins. I have taken a picture of the front panel of my washing machine to prove that I am not making any of this up.

Fig. 1: I think the insect button activates the machines "spidey sense."

Some of those buttons look like they make sense. Most do not. Obviously, they were designed for some sort of pan-european multi-lingual distribution, so they use "universal" symbols instead of words. Everyone knows the universal symbol of "line underneath tub" means ... I think that's "delicate" and of course "vertical line in tub" means ... pre-wash, I think. Actually, none of the stupid buttons make any sense and the only reason I know what they do is because there is a card inside the soap drawer that labels them in different languages. Why they couldn't have just put this card on the front panel and gotten rid of the stupid symbols is beyond me.

Another thing you'll notice is that there is no obvious "start" or "go" button. No, that thing on the end is not it. This is indicative of the thinking that went into this catastrophe. There are so many ridiculous options (you can change the spin speed in multiples of 200 rpm up to 2000 rpm!) that if you were some sort of laundry genius, you could program the perfect sequence for whatever load you had. Of course, if you only do laundry once every couple of weeks, you're screwed. There's no "normal" there's no "go". The closest approximation to "normal" is to push one of the temperature buttons and ... wait for 20 seconds. I know this is hard to believe, but I swear to god that this is actually how it is supposed to work. You push a button and then by not pushing other buttons (which all flash brightly, begging to be pushed) you start the sequence.

Oh, you want to actually clean your clothes do you? Want to throw some detergent in the wash? Well, before you can do that, you had better do some homework. For instance, how "hard" is your water? On a scale from o- 25 fH how hard would you say it is? How about on a scale from 0 - 14 dH? Do you even have a clue what those scales mean? Well, you'd better figure them out if you want to accurately wash your clothes.

Fig. 2: You really have to have OCD in order to appreciate this.

Instead of a picture that shows "large load = big amount, small load = small amount," the back of the detergent bag has a 3 x 7 table giving you more information than you could possibly ever want. If the bag is to be believed, before measuring the amount of detergent, one should determine the hardness of the water, the weight of the clothes, and the level of "soiledness." After doing all of this, it will suggest the appropriate amount of detergent, from 40 - 120 ml, in 10 ml increments. Only the type of person who chooses his spin speed in 200 rpm increments could honestly want this level of specificity.

Once you've started a load, be prepared to wait. My machine takes anywhere from about 1h30 (40 degree water) to 2h30 (95 degree water) to do a single load. Or, if you don't have all day, you can press the "sport" button to cut the time in half. The "sport" button is the only button with a written label, and sadistically, it does almost the opposite of what you might expect. When you think of sports and laundry, do you think of light cleaning? I would think of almost exactly the opposite. Don't clothes get extra dirty playing sports? Or are we to think that the act of doing laundry in half the time is itself a sport? Who's to say. I always choose sport because, seriously, who has that kind of time??? The washer only holds about half what an american washer holds, so to get all of my clothes for two weeks into only three loads is a miracle. I estimate the soiledness of all my clohtes to be "minimal" so I figure I'll take my chances with "sport."

Fig. 3: Me next to the door to the laundry room. No, I am not jumping a foot into the air.

Small capacities, non-intuitive controls, ridiculously complicated instructions, lengthy wash cycles; what isn't there to like about doing laundry here. I guess after a couple months, I'll end up like everyone else and just stop doing it so often. Who cares if I start to smell a little.