Apparently, I have just done something terribly Swedish: I have reneged on a movie date with a friend on account of it conflicting with my laundry room reservation. That’s not as specious an excuse as it sounds: These three-hour slots for washing, drying and ironing are a precious commodity. They require days of advance planning, and are enforced with — in my apartment building’s case — an EZpass-like wireless contraption that won’t unlock the access door if it’s not your turn. Doing laundry requires as much thinking ahead as buying alcohol from Systembolaget, and as much patience as standing in line for a Stockholm nightclub; it’s an investment in time one should not squander unnecessarily.
When I told my friend my excuse, she immediately said, “Oh, so it only took you a year and a half to become Swedish. That’s amazing.” Add a generous dollop of sarcasm to that statement. I do hate being predictable like that, but not as much as going without underwear, so laundry room it remains.
TMI, Stefan.
The quintessential Swedish experience. Here’s an article I translated last year for Sverigeboken (which you may have received, like a kindergarten name tag, when you arrived):
Human dignity gets a mangling
Mark Olson
Many believe in judgement day. A day of reckoning at the end of time when the good and the evil are sent their separate ways. The good get angel’s wings and blessings, while the rest get horns and endless heat.
Anyone who has ever lived in a Swedish rental flat knows where the final judgement will be handed down — in the laundry room. In front of the drier. For this is where sinners are revealed. It takes about 30 seconds for your doom to be sealed.
Swedish morality is simple and direct on this point: a good person cleans the lint filter on the drier.
The filter collects lint from the clothing in the drier. Lint is like our old sins — a grey, diffuse, unappetising tangle. The only difference is that sins are caught by the filter of conscience. Lint is caught by the lint filter.
I know lint filters get no mention in the Bible, the Koran, the Abhidharma or the Mahabharata. To the best of my knowledge, there were no driers in the time of the prophets. But the moral code of the laundry room has deep roots in most religions:
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
The Golden Rule appears in many sacred writings, though the wording may vary. It also appears on a sign in my building’s laundry room:
“Leave the laundry room in the condition you would like to find it.”
And it is etched in letters of fire on my neighbour’s outraged visage.
“And what is this?” he asks with burning fury.
I look down at the lint filter. My neighbour holds it up for inspection: the entire surface is covered with the lint of sin. My lint, and it’s still there. Foul grey lint. I cringe with shame, searching for words to fend off the judgement I know is coming.
“I…uhm…must have forgotten…” I mumble.
“Forgotten?!” says my neighbour.
His accusation stings. I feel as if the sky may fall on me. My good name is at stake here. My cheeks redden. I break out in a sweat. The neighbour just stares at me and my lint.
Maybe I could assure him that I usually clean the lint filter. That I try to lead a good life, give to charity, am honest and forthright and help children and pensioners whenever I can, that I feed the birds in the courtyard, pay my taxes, always think the best of the people I meet…
But I know these are no more than excuses and evasions. My neighbour waves the fluffy evidence in my face.
“Well?”
It’s odd, actually, that the laundry room makes as big a difference as it does in Sweden. But in many housing areas, the laundry room is the only place where neighbours see one another. Otherwise, we live our family lives in our flats. We welcome our relatives and friends across the threshold, but only rarely do we invite our neighbours in for coffee, a party or a bit of socialising.
Instead, we meet in the cold light of the laundry room, amid humming machinery and piles of damp clothing and sheets. Maybe friendship can flower in the laundry room. Maybe pure Swedish wool can be mixed with Egyptian cotton, white mixed with colours. Maybe a glorious song can rise up from cheerful neighbours gathered round the laundry mangle. Maybe my neighbour and I can become the best of friends once the centrifuge winds down, look upon one another in all our common humanity.
“Well?” he repeats in the voice of doom.
Suddenly I catch a glimpse of his watch. I nearly faint. It’s only three! I’ve booked the laundry room until four — I have a whole hour left. The neighbour got the time wrong, came an hour too early. I have a full hour, 60 minutes, to exonerate myself as a human being, to save my good name. To clean the lint filter of the drier.
A Swedish author, August Strindberg, once wrote: It is not in our virtues but in our faults that our humanity resides. That’s a sign that should be put up in every Swedish laundry room.
Damn Swedish socialism. Why can’t the people do their laundry when it suits them?
I was working at my computer this morning, here in Maryland in the U.S.A. – as I checked my email caught an educational show about Sweden on “Cable in the Classroom” – our Yank effort at educating our children about things via television.
I became intrigued by Sweden during this show, out of the corner of my eye the tiny screen in my monitor showed happy Swedes boating and riding very nice bikes. The camera panned beautiful mountains and forests and went on about how Sweden, since they have not been involved in any wars for so long, could devote that money to technology and development. The way this show went on made Sweden look like a Utopia – with promises of a practically perfect welfare system as well, which is part of the reason that Sweden has one of the “highest standards of living in the world.” I got all worked up and was thinking WOW, Sweden looks COOL – and peaceful and BEAUTIFUL and friendly!
So I was Instant Messaging with my husband about it and he said, “It’d be like living in Ikea.” I said, “HEY!!! YEAH!!!” Because I LOVE Ikea – I even have an “Ikea” photo series I am working on (some of them are posted at http://photos.allzah.com) because I LOVE IKEA! Whenever I notice things like the string they have for you to tie things to your car and the place you can dump your batteries for recycling, I think, “Boy, those Swedes are smart! They know how to run a company and still be eco-concious” Not that American companies don’t know that they could do such things, they just don’t take the trouble – but it’s part of the reason I will drive 45 minutes to Ikea when I have a dozen stores I could buy furniture and accessories at three minutes from my house.
So, out of my excitement for Sweden I start poking around on the Internet and have found these postings about Laundry Room stuff. It was SO FUNNY to me how bent people could get over this! Also, what an epidemic it seems to be! Don’t Swedes have room for compact stacked machines in their apartments? Don’t any Swedes live in houses with a laundry room? I can do laundry any time I want (and I never want to) and it’s funny to think of what a great joy it is to have access to clean underwear! 🙂
This is strictly an apartment block-related problem… If you rent an apartment you could bring your own washer and have it installed, but many don’t do that.
I own my apartment but couldn’t fit a washer in there even if I wanted – but our laundry room is luckily not very hostile.
The quintessential Swedish experience…. the stuff Rowan Atkinson’s “Mr. Bean” is made of!
Swedish culture
Sure, there’s meatballs and IKEA. But I’ve noticed a few other things that are very Swedish. Here are two: Candy and ice cream. I went out for dinner tonight with my roommate, and on the way home, we decided to…