Hung out to dry

Do you know how today is supposed to be Blue Monday? (Experts don't think it is, by the way.)

Well, yesterday was pretty discouraging.

It actually started over the Christmas holidays.

One of the requirements we gave to our realtor when searching for a condo last spring was an in-suite laundry.  The apartment had one laundry room with two washers and two dryers, shared by 35 units.  In addition, it was expensive: $2.50 for a washing load (more if you wanted warm or hot water); $2.25 for an hour's drying - 25¢ for each additional eight minutes.

After a couple of decades of my own machines, working out how not to piss people off was a challenge.  They certainly pissed me off: students who stuffed everything into the machines together -- cushions, duvets, underwear -- and people who failed to clear out the machine, but were enraged if you cleared their stuff out in desperation.

The siren call of "home" when I first saw this condo loosened my resolve. The laundry rooms were an odd set-up: three tiny laundry-rooms with a washer and dryer each, on the third, fourth, and fifth floors. (We're on the second floor.) Fifty cents per use, so a dollar for one load.

The machines are older, and don't show how much time is remaining, so I leave a post-it note saying when I turned the machine on.

I've been hoping to start a trend. Nuthin' doing, but I found the sharing civil enough.

Until three or four weeks ago, when, on two occasions, I found an unoccupied laundry room, put in my laundry, set the timer on my phone to return promptly, left a note saying when I'd started the washer ----- and returned to find someone had poached the dryer while my clothes were in the washing machine. I thought this was a thoughtless and unneighbourly thing to do, and left another post-it note saying so, before searching the building for a free dryer. (And no, I didn't poach it from another user.)

In the month that has passed, I felt I had got over my indignation, and no more poaching seemed to occur. To me, anyway.

Yesterday, I decided to put a load of towels in. I only dare do the towels every two or three weeks, but it had been a few weeks since the last contretemps, so I was feeling brave. On the fourth floor, where the best dryer is, the dryer was in use, but warm to the touch, which usually means it's getting toward the end of the set time, which is one hour. The washer takes a half hour, and when I returned, the dryer was still. It was full of towels. I carefully draped these -- about five bathsheets and half a dozen smaller sizes, over the rack, carefully separating one not-quite-dry towel to a separate rung, so it wouldn't dampen the dry items, and would have a better chance to air out. I put my towels into the dryer, started the machine, and left my usual post-it note, noting the time and date.

The Resident Fan Boy, back from a voice lesson with younger daughter, accompanied me for the "half-hour check", where we remove dry items so the rest has a fighting chance. To our horror, there was another post-it note beside mine, scrawled with large and angry writing. I had apparently used the two quarters left in the coin-cradle by the previous user, who had intended to run the towels through a second cycle, and thought leaving the coins would be a clear signal of his/her intentions.

H/she hadn't reckoned with my mind. I had been surprised, when I had gone to put my money in, to find 50¢ already there, but figured, knowing myself, that I had put them in place without knowing.

NOT VERY FRIENDLY!! bellowed the post-it note. The towels I'd draped over the rack were gone.

I grabbed another post-it note and scribbled: "Absolutely unintentional! I'm sorry! I've left two quarters -- if you come back!" And thought to myself: Really? Leaving two quarters in the slots holds your place? Really? Using two hour-long drying cycles when someone else is in the queue?

I didn't write that, of course. It would use too many post-it notes, aside from enraging whoever-this-is further.

Both the RFB and elder daughter are sure the interloper is the same person whom I admonished by post-it note at Christmas.

I rather hope they're right. These are three incidents, and I hate the idea of three households waiting to ambush me with baseball bats, but that's a little extreme.

Isn't it?