As I'd mentioned previously, laundry is an extraordinary experience in Stockholm.
It's a system. It's a national system. It's a socialist, national system whereby you schedule laundry a week or so in advance, await your day and time anxiously, wearing your underwear inside out, or sometimes none at all, just so you can make it to the glory that is laundry day.
Figure 1.
Figure 2. My lock is #4.
Figure 3.
Above is the highly-complex mechanism that ensures the socio-political, almost military enforcement of the Laundry System For The People. It's so complex, I need three diagrams in order to explain it.
The system, devised by Electrolux, makers of refrigerators, vacuums, and other complex home appliances, bring us the tvättsystem (pronounced tvett system), which literally means laundry system. It's a board with locks, where along the top of the board are the days of the month, 1 - 31 (see Figures 2&3), and along the sides are the time slots (see Figure 1...it's a bit tough to see, I know). The time slots are 7-11am, 11am-3pm, 3pm-7pm, and 7pm - 11pm. There's also a fifth one called "Park" and I have no idea what that means. Perhaps the laundry room turns into a leisurely government-subsidized green area, where one can frolic, bring the kids to play, and watch as geese crap all over their tax dollars.
A week ago, I scheduled laundry for this morning at 11am, in preparation for my father's visit, and because apparently, wearing paper towels as a substitute for clothing stopped being socially acceptable, even in the workplace.
Lo and behold, when I arrived, I discovered that someone had started laundry just MINUTES before.
And that's when I realized that the socialist ideal is flawed; that social democracy is a broken system of government; that wealth distribution, universal healthcare, and free education CANNOT exist, when the free man has to walk around wearing paper towels for clothes because his fellow countryperson decided he/she was above the Electrolux System of Laundry.
Thus just as the criminal's wash was due to finish, I went down to the laundry room, armed with nothing more than my detergent and my dirty underwear, prepared to confront the treacherous felon of social responsibility.
Just as I was about to set their laundry on fire, there arrived a Swedish mother, and her very attractive 28ish year old daughter. In my broken Swedish I told them that they'd taken my spot...
...and never could I have imagined such utter embarrassment on the faces of human beings. They had misread the board and thought their slot was at 11. And I'd sheepishly told them not to worry about it at all, and told them I would take their 3pm slot.
And of course as fate would have it, I bumped into them like three more times today, each time having to confront their profuse apologies.
Today, I scored a victory for capitalism. I think. Ok maybe not.
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