Laundry Day

:Week 6: In which we run away…again

The idea came to me as I stared at the ceiling from the comfort of my own bed, awake in the middle of the night due to literal fussing and virtual stewing. The news was that we would not get our clean water back until the middle of December. I decided I needed a little pampering and a lot less work. I would, I mused, rent an apartment somewhere else where I could go whenever I wanted a break from the drudgery of hauling and boiling water, the tedium of deciding if washing my hands was a justifiable use of a precious commodity, and the donkeywork of little-house-on-the-prairie dishwashing. Would I be required to stage an all-out revolt in order to sway the former dishwasher into committing to my plan? I was ready with the determination to metaphorically march on Washington if need be. It turned out to be unnecessary, but who can argue with one’s own addled brain at 3 am?

The next morning, I opened our road atlas (yes, we are adorably quaint) and stabbed my finger on a location just south of the zone of destruction. This turned out to be Landrum, SC. My husband added his wisdom to this maniacal plot by stating that finding a vacation rental might be easier (and cheaper) than renting an apartment. I was having flashbacks to the cute condo in Atlanta that seemed so appealing. The main requirements for this particular bolt hole were: 1) Must have a washer and dryer 2) Must have clean running water 3) Must be in a small town with locally-owned restaurants as I was not going to cook nor eat at Taco Bell. Landrum fit all the criteria for this dubious hot shower and laundry facilities in a small town jaunt, especially since I never heard of it and there was little there to attract other visitors. I was wrong about that last one, but had to go and see for myself.

We booked a three day, all-inclusive package deal–sight unseen. I kept reminding myself the place had a washer and dryer and 60 inch tv and was close to the downtown, two block area, which sported thrift shops and a few restaurants. I confess, it was nice just having created a get-away where I would not have to boil any water–unless I wanted a cup of tea. We shipped our dog off to doggy camp, loaded up the car with as much laundry as could be held in a passenger vehicle and headed south.

We were experiencing sit-outside weather, so we had hopes of dining alfresco and getting in a little hiking. Landrum, SC has a two block stretch of downtown with three restaurants. Close to free parking and sporting a largish outdoor patio, The Hare and Hound restaurant was our first stop. A guitarist was playing some easy-listening-radio-station type music, which both bothered and delighted me. Nice selection of oldies but too loud for any conversations that didn’t include shouting what?. Sitting in the sun on a warmish afternoon, eating a grilled pimento cheese sandwish with sweet potato fries had the effect of quietly easing the tension of the past few weeks. After eating we walked the blocks of downtown and found some fun stores in which to browse.

Outside the Amish furniture store, we ran into Sue and sat down for some conversation in the comfortable Amish yard chairs. Sue and her husband, who apparently did not have the gift of gab, were visiting from Washington state. She had lived in the area once upon a time and said she still considered the folks from Asheville as her neighbors. There followed talk about how we met our spouses and what other places we had lived. I was just killing time on a beautiful afternoon with a fellow wanderer until we could check in to our rental unit. No one seemed in a big hurry to go anywhere else, so we chatted for a while longer until Sue got a phone call she had to answer. It seemed like a good time to head to the coffee shop for a cup of tea.

Once we had toured the entire Landrum commercial district, we headed to the house we rented–or at least the lower half of the rental unit. We are not cut out for following inadequate and outdated directions for unlocking electronic door locks. This was not our first fumble with the damn things. I guess actual keys are a thing of the past. Push these four numbers. That was the easy part. But first, touch some button that did not exist and then after pushing the four numbers, hit that nonexistent button once again and then spend fifteen minutes retrying a few more times. They might have mentioned that the door knob had no function whatsoever. I decided the owners of this joint must have recently switched to a new locking mechanism but forgot to update their directions to eliminate the old buttons and add the names of the new ones. After a bit of cussing, we just decided to ignore their directions and figure it out for outselves. This took awhile, but we were eventually able to get in.

I actually ogled the laundry room. We would be spending a lot of time together and I was happy that at least it was attractive. Once again, new-fangled appliances caused a bit of hand wringing and strategic thinking. After four tries, I got that washing machine going gangbusters on our mountain of laundry. We got Mexican take-out for dinner and settled in for fluff and fold in front of the tv, which took forever to figure out, as well as the electric fireplace. They both had remote controls along with the heating unit and some unidentified other thing which had a remote control but would not identify itself for controlling. Whatever it was, we apparently didn’t need it. We wallowed in the luxury of making things function from the comfort of the couch.

Next day, we headed out to the only grocery store in town (that we could find) and scored three tankards of spigoted water and a slew of paper plates and bowls (there were none in our neighborhood stores in Asheville). Lunch out and a good hike rounded out our day. We purchased a premade lasagna to heat up at our leisure from the restaurant where we had lunch so that we could continue lounging while watching tv and listening for the summons from the washer and/or dryer. All told, we did seven loads. Who would think doing laundry would be such delightful labor?

We headed home the following morning with our water, paper goods, enough clean clothes to last a few weeks and a couple of squeaky clean bodies. The news upon our return was good. Clean water might be gushing from our own pipes in about a week. We hoped the water people weren’t just teasing us with the dangling of their precious commodity. Just a few more days to endure the tedium, the work, the tater tots. I baked muffins in anticipation of the return to normalcy. It was worth the extra dirty dishes.

Wish us luck,

Cheryl