Fred's Dirty Laundry

In college, one thing that annoyed me was when people using the laundry rooms would not promptly remove their clothes from the machines after the cycles. Now, I understand being a few minutes late, but several hours? Come on. Often, I would see laundry sit in machines, finished, for the entire time it took my clothes to be washed, dried and folded. This was especially annoying when there was a shortage of machines.

The Resident Director of my dorm junior year apparently felt my pain on the matter and plastered signs all over the laundry room threatening to donate unattended clothes to charity. Overkill? Probably. Passive-aggressive? Definitely. But, I understood her underlying concern.

Well, Fred did not. He was one of those loath-able laundry leavers. And not just the extra hour variety. He was, by far, the worst laundry leaver I have ever encountered. Frequently, he would put his clothes in the washing machine, go to class for a few hours, move them to the dryer, go out drinking, and then take them out of the laundry room the next morning. And this was when he was on top of the laundry situation. Usually, this process would take much longer. Laundry time was frequently a multi-day event for Fred. This was particularly disturbing considering he did not even start the laundry process until he had been forced to go commando for at least 4 days.

Well, after one particularly long laundry run (five days, to be exact), he returned to the laundry room to find his clothes, and the suitcase in which he brought them to the laundry room, gone. Apparently at some point during those five days, the Resident Director had made good on her promise.

This particular batch of clothes included such gems as: the pink parachute pants, the yellow button down tie-dye shirt, and a plethora of Hawaiian shirts.

Needless to say, I was not sorry for his loss.