Loathing in The Time of Launderia

Substitute title: Ring Around the Collar-a?

Don't know why appliances are high on my list to write about. It's not like I do housework. But here we are, may I be hounded by environmentalists everywhere: I can't escape energy-efficient washing machines. I love the idea of them, of course (who doesn't want to save the planet one wash at a time?), but I hate the reality of them.

My understanding is they work on less water and use less energy by taking longer per load. But here's the rub: how is it energy efficient when you can only half-fill the damned things thus requiring double the loads, and nothing comes out clean so you have to wash them twice?

Am I high or is that more energy, less efficiency?

They're ever so popular in Europe, where they are rarely accompanied by tumble dryers and located in the kitchen. A kitchen usually located in an apartment, located in a building without access to an outdoor clothes line. What you are left with is airing your (still dirty) laundry from every surface of the house, usually the radiators – which sometimes you have to turn on especially to dry the clothes. Even if you do have access to the outside with a line, what’s the point if you live in a place where it rains, like the UK, 360 days a year?

Now, being Americans with tumble dryers, you might not know that if your laundry is left to dry of its own devices, it can take days, and as time passes, your clothes develop a mildewy smell and you have to start the process all over again. It’s a nightmare.

Doing laundry is the one chore I don’t loathe, but give me an energy-sucking, high-speed, meter-spinning, stain-removing, truly convenient, lovely jubbly machine that finishes a wash in under two hours and I may just be able to focus some time on putting away the clean clothes instead of piling them up on the dresser.