Polish Ham: The laundry situation.

When I was searching for an apartment in Krakow, I selected my place based on location, price, safety, internet connection and washing machine on premises.

Today I did my laundry. To get to the laundry room, I walked up all the stairs in the building until I could go no further up where I discovered a little room that looked like someone's messy attic. The room was dingy and laundry-room smelly, a cave with two machines and rows of clothes hanging to dry. It looked like I was not supposed to be there. I should have taken it as a sign.

I examined the machines. The dryer appeared to be broken. I put my clothes in the washing machine. I pushed what looked like the main button. Nothing happened. There were a variety of settings, a few buttons, some blinking, all labeled in Polish. I did not know what meant what. I turned some knobs around, pushed some buttons here and there, until it finally turned on.

In the machine, my clothes started spinning really fast, and I could see that they were not getting wet. I waited a few more minutes, sitting on a cold wooden plank on the floor and watching. More spinning of dry clothes. I touched the machine to see if it was hot. It wasn't. I tried to open the door. I couldn't. I called mom. She had just returned back to New Jersey from Poland.

"I need some help with the laundry," I explained, like I was a 28-year-old college freshman. "What is O-d-w-i-r-o-w-a-n-i-e mean?" I asked her, spelling it out.

"That means to wring out the clothes."

"Oh. I think that is what is happening. I turned the dial to "krotkie 40 degrees." "What's krotkie?"

"Shorts." Hm. I spelled out all the other words. I could feel my mom getting tense from one word to the next.

"Wait, I need to write these down," my mom said, "I am not so good with spelling."

None of the other words seemed like good options, so I decided to keep it at shorts. I waited longer, this time with mom on the phone. Still looked like there was no water. My mom explained that Basia's washing machine in Warsaw worked the same way. There was a lot of turning and no water at first. So I said good-bye and went back to my apartment for an hour. When I came back, I couldn't open the laundry room door.

I walked down to the first floor to the management office. The young girl who works there seemed bored and annoyed.

"The door is locked," I told her.

"That's impossible," she said. She said it in a tone as if this was the solution. "I can't leave the office since I am alone here."

I was terrified my clothes would be locked in that stinky room forever, spinning forever with no water. So I walked up the stairs again and tried to open the door by repeatedly slamming my body against it. The technique worked--after five minutes.

My laundry was complete. It was dry. And dirty. And not the least bit warm. My afternoon spent doing laundry was a wash, so to speak.

I resorted to Plan B.