Perspectives

Those days my roommate J and I had regular routines of washing clothes in the laundry, mostly on weekends. During weekends however, the usage was at its peak and we often had a hard time looking for empty washers/dryers. That day we kept our clothes in the washers and went out for shopping and completely forgot all about it. Later in the evening when our bulbs lit, we rushed to the laundry only to find our clothes in none of the washers! Our first reaction was shock but we soon realized that the probability of someone stealing wet washed clothes from a laundry seemed bleak (plus this wasn't India). So, we went ahead and checked the dryers and lo! Our clothes were all dried up. Someone had moved our clothes from the washers to the dryers! We dint like the idea of that at all. What freaky crappy folks! Impatient people! We swore and came back scowling and growling!

A few weeks later...

We had to travel to Smoky mountains the next day and had a huge pile of clothes to wash. Luckily it wasn't still twilight and we had enough time. Off we went carrying our hampers and quarters and detergent and softener. And lo! All washers were in use! But wait ... the last one looked done. There were clothes inside but they were washed. So, someone had forgotten to do the second round into the dryers. What followed was a moment of silence followed by some "dharam sankat". And then with silent agreement, without exchanging a word or a glance, we quickly moved those clothes from the washer to the dryer. Then went ahead with our chores in a matter of factly way.

We never talked about it.