They still make clotheslines. They still make clothespins. Drying clothes on the line still works. Don't tell the Maytag guy, but you can pretty much shut down your dryer during a Sacramento summer.
(*see below)
Apparently this isn't allowed in some fancy neighborhoods, but we don't live where billowing sheets are verboten. We live where the summers are perfect for hanging out.
Faster than you can say "But it's a DRY heat", clothes on the line on a Central Valley summer day will be done. Yesterday, I hung up some sheets and towels and before the next wash load was finished, the sheets were ready to put back on the bed. And although they add all kinds of artificial scents to our laundry products, nothing can replace that "Aahhhh" good smell of line-dried linens. Like the smell of rain, it just can't be copied.
 |
| Just stay together guys, that's all I ask |
I started doing this to save money while I was unemployed, and now it's just part of summer. It takes more time to bring them out and hang them up verses the transfer from the washer to the dryer, that I admit. But once on the line, taking them down and folding them is way faster and the socks are already mated up and ready to be buddies in the sock drawer. My laundry basket of choice is a big blue Ikea bag, (how did we ever live without those?) The only things I refuse to line-dry are the Big E's dress shirts and pants. They go in the Permanent Press cycle, always have - always will. I may be retro when it comes to hanging out, but I never have and never will think ironing is cool.
 |
| Interactive Expat |
*Funny true story from my husband's bachelor days in Davis: He and his roommate Dan also hung their clothes up in summer - all summer until they had to bite the bullet and start using the dryer again come winter. One summer they were perplexed because so many of their dishes and pans were missing. They kept accusing their neighbor who had a key of coming and borrowing their kitchen items without returning them. Or was it a case of the dish running away with the spoon and using some knives to kidnap the pots and pans?
On the first cold day of Fall it was time to open up the dryer again for use. And there inside were all the dirty dishes and pots and pans, quite gross and moldy from being shut up all summer. Who puts dirty dishes in the dryer? That would be Dan and Ernst, that's who. While cleaning up for a party at their place, they had hid all the unwashed stuff in such a logical place - the clothes dryer. Anything to get out of dish duty.
The "Dish Ditcher" and "Hates to Press Jess"
