When Samantha Petterson came home from high school, her mother had a pile of crisp clothing folded neatly on her bed smelling of evergreen, mint and lilacs — along with an after-school snack, a vacuumed room, a clean and disinfected bathroom, and dinner on the way.
Moving into the residence halls, Petterson said she found herself with dirty laundry and no mom to wash it. Her room clearly stunk like dirty socks and underwear mixed with moldy towels. She didn’t know this smell would linger with her as she left her room and walked on-campus wearing a shirt for the fifth time without washing it.
“I decided to never do my laundry and boycott the whole thing,” she said. “My mom came up to visit in late-October, and I told her to do it for me or buy me new clothes. Luckily she did both and I didn’t wash my clothes again until I went home for Christmas.”
Many students experience similar scenarios when entering college. They just don’t understand why that pile of clothes is growing taller than they are and smelling like rotten eggs and stale buttermilk. Most of all, it won’t disappear. Students must realize they can only wear underwear inside-out once — and that is pushing it.
But the pesky task of doing laundry can be complex. Timing laundry with a school schedule, avoiding turning whites to pink (although that is a trend), dodging Laundromat theft, dismantling disasters and knowing proper laundry etiquette are all things every college student living independently should know.
Seth Peterson, a senior recreation major, had a mom who did his laundry throughout high school too.
He didn’t ask her to do it. It was done without question, he said.
“It was like magic,” he said. “There would be dirty clothes all over one day, and the next morning it would be all clean and smell like a stroll through a spring meadow.”
It wasn’t too hard for him to figure out how the whole laundry process worked, he said. It was more annoying than anything, and he still prolongs it as much as possible.
“At first, I just wouldn’t do it often,” Peterson said. “Once my clothes start smelling like Riley’s bar mats, I finally give in and head on down to the Laundromat.”
Erin Brown can be reached at:
erinm_brown@yahoo.com
Other stories in this series:
A Cheerful guide to doing laundry
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