So I am ” living” in a foreign country.  It is European so the culture is older than our USA sisters. However, it is the dark ages for women.  I can purchase shoes for Italy, handbags from Spain but if I want a dryer the apartment will need   a remodel-no space or hookups for dryers. After the remodel I discover from the electronic  store that I will have to order one as they don’t ” keep them in stock.”

Now it is October.  It is raining outside.  It is cold.  Last night I hung the clothes that I washed in the shower ( because I haven’t figured out how to wash in this ” toy machine.”

The process:  I was nude.  I heated up the on demand hot water heater and laid the clothes in the floor in the shower. Then I stomped them; turned them over like pancakes; walked on them and then tried to wring out the water and the bubbles with the dishwashing soap named ” Fairy.”  Yes, I am nude as this is something you can’t do with your clothes on.

I hung my husband’s shirt over the shower rod without a curtain –  there isn’t one there. I draped the underwear over the heaters that looked like ” fat white ladders” hanging on the wall.  I used the loops on my pajamas and hung the over the balcony with wire hangers. This morning they were heavy with rain.

I can’t imagine how a mother takes care of laundry  without dryers.  Your house has to have some access to clothesline  and people in apartments either use the balcony or a set of ropes and pulleys   strung across the windows outside their highrise apartments.  But what about on rainy days and freezing temperatures?  If you drape them around your house you are essentially ” living in the dryer.”  Apartments here don’t pay per usage of heating.  They pay per square meter.  So if you live in a small apartment your heating bill is less than a big apartment. The occupant can turn up the heat and cook the clothes and sweat the family.

When I arrive back to the USA I am writing a Thank You and Appreciation Letter to my dryer and to the women who said, ” If you want me to do your laundry invent the dryer!