Home Ec 3, Fourth Period, 1/19

[screwyoumarvel]

The students had been asked to meet in the dorm laundry room today, and to bring their dirty laundry. "Let's do laundry," Steve said to the group. "Don't be scared! There's nothing to be scared of! You guys have it so much easier than back in my day." His mother had been a washerwoman in New York City. 'Nuff said. "We have washing machines now! So. Here's how you do it."

"The first thing is to always read your clothes' care labels." Steve handed around a handout about how to interpret these labels. "Some garments require special care, like handwashing or drycleaning, or need to be laid flat to dry. Pay attention to these labels, or you'll ruin your clothes. If your clothes don't have labels and you're not sure what to do, don't hesitate to ask me for help or, at other times, for a second opinion. Most labels will say something like 'wash with like colors.' If you're new at this, this may seem like a weird statement, but you don't have to split everything up into little bitty color groups. What it really means is to wash your white clothes separately and your dark clothes separately, and then everything else is probably safe to wash together. Three divisions, plus special cases. Not that hard, right?

Steve went on, "You'll want to be sure that as you sort your clothes you close all of your closures--zippers, hooks, and snaps-to prevent them coming off or catching on something in the dryer, and to empty your pockets. At least, you'll have shreds of paper all over everything if you don't, and at worst, you'll ruin your phone. They don't come back from laundering. Credit cards do, though, if you don't dry them. Just a tip." Steve went on to demonstrate how the washing machines operated, how to put in detergent and/or bleach (and to discuss briefly when and when not to use bleach), select your temperature and cycle, and turn it on, and then to repeat with the dryer. "Some clothes you can't dry in a dryer--it's really good to use a clothesline for everything, certainly more energy-efficient, but you're in dorm rooms, so your space is limited. Delicates like..." watch Steve blush. Blush, Steve, blush, "ah, brassieres, and some sweaters, shouldn't be dried in a dryer. Just read your care labels. And now..." he stepped back and spread his hands to take in the whole of the room. "You can do your laundry. Get to it." He grinned at them and said, "You don't have any homework for this week, as I'm taking it as writ that you'll run out of clean clothes and have to do laundry again at some point in the future."

Comments

Sign In

[screwyoumarvel]

Like it's laundry day.

Re: Sign In

[showmetheproof.livejournal.com]

Dana Scully

Re: Sign In

[longislandiceme]

Bobby Drake

Re: Sign In

[icecoldfrost]

Emma Frost

Re: Sign In

[nothornlessrose.livejournal.com]

Cassidy

During the Lecture

[screwyoumarvel]

You might want to pay attention unless you want to wind up with pink underwear and shrunk t-shirts.

Re: During the Lecture

[longislandiceme]

Bobby's head was spinning like a washing machine in, well, the midst of a spin cycle. This wouldve been handy to know back when he'd tried washing his X-Men uniform. It hadn't gone well, needless to say.

Do Your Laundry

[screwyoumarvel]

Sort, wash, dry, fold. Talk about it.

Re: Do Your Laundry

[icecoldfrost]

"Dry clean, dry clean. dry clean," Emma sang, not even checking each label as she held things up. "Oh, that can go in the washer."

'That' was one of the two pairs of jeans in her basket. Everything else? Dry clean only, and Emma was not washing her 'delicate' items in class. The bras and such were going to stay safely hidden under one of those cashmere sweaters.

Re: Do Your Laundry

[glacial_queen]

Okay, so the clothing Karla had bought in this world all had handy tags on it, but the clothing she'd brought from home most certainly didn't. And while Morton's old cast-offs could be tossed almost anywhere (they had to be hardy for them to stand up to what Karla put them through), there were a lot of things that she just wasn't sure about.

Fur? Could that be washed? Silk? Lace?

"I think he forgot the part where you just hand it to the maids because they know what to do with it all," she said, holding up a dress partially made from silver tissue.

Re: Do Your Laundry

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

"My clothing always just disappeared and came back clean," Tony agreed, glaring the machine into submission. Because that would work.

...maybe if Mr. Rogers let him take it apart...

Re: Do Your Laundry

[glacial_queen]

"That's actually literally true for me back home," Karla said. She couldn't quite manage a smile, but her voice was friendly enough. "Which meant it was very hard for me to learn to put my clothes neatly in a hamper when the maids could vanish it wherever they were strewn."

Re: Do Your Laundry

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

"...vanish or teleport?" This was somehow the most important part of that sentence.

Oh, the hardships of the rich.

Re: Do Your Laundry

[screwyoumarvel]

"This class is for when you don't have maids around to do things," Steve reminded Karla gently. "You don't have a maid in the dorm, do you?" He gestured to her pile of clothes and asked, "Do you need some help sorting these?"

Re: Do Your Laundry

[glacial_queen]

"I'm okay with washing all my usual stuff," Karla said, pointing at her pile of jeans and sweaters and other assorted clothing. "It's just all the fancy stuff I'm confused by. Which is why I save it to take home because they do know how to clean it."

She was happy to let Steve take a look at some of the clothing that was giving her trouble. "None of my clothes at home come with the labels you were talking about."

Re: Do Your Laundry

[screwyoumarvel]

"The labels are a pretty modern invention here, even," Steve said. "When I was a kid you didn't have anything like that." Of course, he'd been a kid in the twenties... "That means it's important to know what fabric your clothes are made of, and what care that requires. Like this," he said, gesturing to the dress with the silver tissue. "It would probably be safest to dry clean this."

Re: Do Your Laundry

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

Alex had been doing his laundry since age seven so this was a breeze. He read a few of the labels but most of his stuff was t-shirts and jeans so his piles were big and disorganized.

Re: Do Your Laundry

[twintuitionist.livejournal.com]

Most of Juliet's stuff was dry clean, but she had a few jeans and t-shirts for layering, and she wasn't too proud to throw in her pajamas and underwear as well.

Whether all of those things would like being washed together in hot water with twice the soap that was needed -- Juliet figured more had to be better than less -- was another question.

Re: Do Your Laundry

[showmetheproof.livejournal.com]

Scully gave Juliet's preparations a dismayed look. "Um. I don't think you want everything to shrink, do you?"

Re: Do Your Laundry

[twintuitionist.livejournal.com]

"Noooo..." Juliet said, looking thoroughly perplexed. "Why would I want that?"

Re: Do Your Laundry

[longislandiceme]

Bobby was checking to make sure his uniform wasn't hiding in the pile of jeans and t-shirts, this time. Getting new ones made was enough of a pain with how often they got ripped or otherwise destroyed in fights, but having to explain that he'd accidentally washed it in the regular laundry machine again? Awkward.

Talk to the TA

[screwyoumarvel]

Once he pings in.

Re: Talk to the TA

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

Tony was possibly a little glad for this class. He hadn't actually washed anything since he arrived, so...

Awkward.

Talk to the Teacher

[screwyoumarvel]

Who is looking kind of fondly reminiscent for some reason.

OOC

[screwyoumarvel]

True story: a girl in my freshman dorm thought 'wash with like colors' meant you washed each and every color separately, and would not believe anything else, even when we staged an intervention because she took up the entire laundry room whenever she washed clothes. And one of those washers would have one orange pair of socks and one orange bra in it.