laundrytastic

This weekend I did my laundry.  What else did I do?  Not much else, friends, and honestly, I am pretty darn proud that I managed to do my laundry.  You have no idea how much I worried about it during the week.  I had a lot of questions.  I wrote them down, and I thought about them between classes.  Where to dry my laundry?  How to acquire a rack on which to dry my laundry?  How to find the necessary cleaning agents and not accidentally buy bleach?  How to press the right buttons on my high-tech looking machine?

Starting with the dictionary was an utterly useless idea, as it turned out.  I copied out the Korean for “detergent” and “soften,” thinking that maybe somewhere on the packages I might find variants of these things.  But when I was in the aisles, none of the words on the packages looked like the words on my little piece of paper.  Initially, I didn’t want to buy stuff without knowing what I was getting, but eventually I caved and bought the on-sale-probably-softener.  People holding stuffed animals or towels tend to indicate softener in any culture, for some reason.  Thankfully, I was right on this guess.  And the stuff even smells good!  I was a little worried.  I went with pink.  Sometimes purple things can be too intense.  Green is usually manly.  Pink is a safe choice.  The product is even called “Pink Sensation.”  I admit that I really wanted it because it had stuff taped to it – I love the Korean way of selling by combo-packs.  They tend to tape extra stuff on to the main product with packaging tape.  Sometimes the items are closely related – with “Pink Sensation” I got some sort of laundry sheet – and sometimes they aren’t – like the toothbrush kit I saw stuck on the coffee display.  Though really, I guess it isn’t a bad idea to tape toothbrushes to coffee.  Maybe if you brush right after you drink, your teeth don’t stain as much.  Or maybe the brush and the coffee are together because both are associated with starting the day.  It’s musing like this that makes combo shopping worthwhile.

The actual detergent was more problematic.  I was afraid of buying bleach.  Eventually, a sales lady came over and recommended something that was on sale.  It was for a high efficiency machine as I could tell from the little picture on the package, so I didn’t really need it.  She gave me a sample of it, though.  I think she was going to start taping them to something, but I got mine solo.  Maybe she gives them out like that too.  Anyway, I gave up on trying to pick a detergent after a few minutes of fruitless staring.  I went to the laundry accessory aisle and found a wonderfully small and light drying rack.  I also selected a mesh bag for my clothes.  I hear Korean machines eat things, and I love my clothes.  Best to be safe.  (The presence of a dozen different bags to chose from leads me to think that the rumors are true.)

When I got home, I decided to go ahead and use the sample.  I figured that the h.e. stuff was supposedly weaker (right?) to make sure that clothes in those machines don’t have detergent left in them, so it definitely wouldn’t be too strong for my regular machine.  I used a random amount – I have no way to measure, and even if I did, I couldn’t figure out how much I should use.  It’s all either Korean or metrics, and as an American, both mean nothing to me.

As for machine buttons, I ran it on “sensor.”  (Thankfully, that at least was in English.)  Sensor means that I don’t actually have to know what any of the buttons mean, because it chooses all of the settings automatically.

The wash process went well.  There is a slot at the back of the machine – I wonder if that’s for detergent or for the softener.  I’ll have to figure that out sometime.  This go around, I just added things when necessary.  My clothes are still chilling in the bathroom on their rack.  I think they are dry.  One of the other people in this apartment building dries her clothes outside of her apartment, in the hallway.  I’m not that brave.

Since finishing my first round of laundry, I have acquired a really heavy bag of powdered detergent.  I bought it because it had English on the bag that assured me of its detergent-ness.  It says “cold water detergent,” and since I have cold water and need detergent, it seemed like a good buy.  And it was on sale.  (I love sales.)  But why tape a sample size of one product to a larger size of itself?  I don’t get the reasoning, really, but sure, I’ll take another 3 loads worth of detergent, thanks.  I hope it smells good.