Laundry Wars

Last night, I brought my laundry down to the basement only to find the machine in use. Drat! I thought, and returned upstairs. I came back a half-hour later, took the load out of the washer and sat it on top of the drier, and put in my coloreds.

When I returned for a third time, the load on top of the drier had not been dried and still sat there. I was not about to run somebody else's laundry through the drier, as people have special fabrics and preferred settings and things that shouldn't go through the drier. Plus I don't want to touch my neighbors' underwear any more than necessary. So I went ahead and put my wet clothes in the drier, started it, and loaded my whites into the washer.

I heard the garage door roll up. Enter neighbor "Moral" Mary, who is very religious and teaches at a Catholic school and goes and works with kids in Africa but who also parks in the driveway every night (blocking access to the garage for those who actually pay for it) and leaves doors wide open (not good in a city) and is generally unfriendly. All who know her put heavy odds on her being a lesbian, which is cool of course, but makes for some interesting religious complications. Our conversation:

Moral Mary (gesturing to drier): Those are yours?
Me: Yep.
Moral Mary (gesturing to washer): And those?
Me: Yep.
Moral Mary: Damn

And then she left. Victory was mine! But then I went down to get my laundry this morning and discovered that she'd taken out my dried clothes and PUT THEM ON TOP OF ANOTHER LOAD OF DIRTY CLOTHES I HAD WAITING. This was particularly annoying as I'd put my hamper directly next to the drier and she had to carry my clean clothes a full five extra feet to mix them up. So through a mixture of sniffing and remembering I pulled out as many clean clothes as I could and left the rest to be washed, some of it for the second time. I pulled MM's clothes out of the drier and stuffed it into her hamper, moved my wet clothes in, and started the washer. Then the garage door rolled up and Moral Mary came in.

Moral Mary (gesturing to her hamper): These are mine?
Me: Yep.
Moral Mary: Great! Thanks!

Apparently she didn't realize that I had MIXED UP HER DRIED CLOTHES WITH A DIFFERENT LOAD OF DIRTY CLOTHES STILL IN THE HAMPER! HA!

Obviously this war is not over. I am confident that the strength of smell of my cycling clothes will prove to be the deciding factor in future confrontations.