How a Broken Washing Machine Actually Saved Me Hours of Work Today

I know what you're thinking...a broken washing machine can't save time. I tell you it did. And here is how.

My washing machine is dead, not mostly dead, but really and truly dead. My dear husband has been repairing the poor thing once a year for over four years. This time he needed to order parts.

So the wait for the parts to arrive began. Now lucky for me, I was all caught up on the laundry before the death occurred this time, or it could have been far worse.

So now we fast forward three weeks. The part is in the mail, but the laundry is piling up. I decided to go somewhere I haven't been since college...the laundromat. I sent the children on a scavenger hunt for quarters. I gathered up the laundry, soap and fabric softener. I headed out the door.

Inside our local laundromat they have extra large humongous washing machines. The kind you could stuff a llama into. I filled two of these wonderful machines and one smaller version with my clothes. I plugged my quarters into the slots and then sat at a table and began to do some paperwork I needed to catch up on. Forty-five minutes later, the soggy clothes were stuffed into some equally huge dryers. And I moved on to lesson planning.

As the dryers finished, I folded the clothes and placed them into my laundry baskets. I have one basket for each of my children, one for towels, and one for the husband and myself. I walked out of that place with over eight loads of laundry: washed, dried, folded and sorted. I had completed this amazing task in exactly two hours.

I was out about $18, but the time savings were amazing. Normally, it takes eighty minutes to wash and dry one load in my home. Then of course, I am guilty of letting it pile up, unfolded, in the baskets for later. It would have taken me days to do this amount of laundry at home. Since I had nothing to do except sit at the laundromat, I was able to catch up on all that pesky paperwork I have been avoiding. I don't recommend this as a regular activity. But once in awhile, I might have to travel back there and put my two hours to great use.

Now if I could just get it all put away...