Keeping Clean

One stereotype of the Germans is that they're a very clean people--always washing things, and even sweeping the sidewalk.  So you'd think washing clothes in Germany wouldn't be such a pain in the Arsch.  Au contraire.  "Why?" you might ask?  Well, because I do it by hand. 

Oh, there are washers and driers in Germany.  But it costs 2 euros to operate the washers, which are only about half the size of an American washer (even at Denison, it only costs $1.75 to wash, if my memory serves me, and the washers are twice as big).  The dryers are only slightly less of a ripoff.  The small ones that are half the size of an American dryer will cost you 1 euro and the big ones that are about the size of an American one, if not slightly larger, are 1,50 (Denison dryers are only 75 cents). 

Even more frustrating is the fact that when I told my friend who has studied in both Hungary and the Netherlands about the outrageous cost of washing in Germany, he seemed a bit shocked.  Guess how much he paid for washing clothes at the dorm he lived in in the Netherlands?  Nothing.  And in Hungary?  Also nothing.  Not a penny.  The reasoning he gave?  Being able to wash clothes is a matter of personal hygiene.  You wouldn't charge someone for the toilet paper they use when they go to the bathroom, nor the soap from the soap dispenser when they wash their hands afterward (but then again, this rule doesn't apply to the Germans either.  It's actually another one of those things you have to pay for yourself--the bathrooms in the dorms don't have soap.  You have to buy your own.  Not knowing this, I lacked soap on my first night in Germany and had to wash my hands with shampoo--gross.).  You don't make someone pay to use the showers; that would just be tacky (unless you're in the Grand Canyon.  Showers there are expensive!).  So why, he argued, would you make someone pay to use those tiny, old washers and dryers that probably don't even use 2euros worth of electricity to operate? 

I'll answer that: it's because they're Germans and they're ridiculous about nicking you for every pfennig they can lay their hands on.  Probably because they don't charge enough for students to actually go to school or something, and they're running low on Geld because of it; I don't know.  All I know is that it sucks.  It sucks big time.  It sucks so much, in fact, that after having washed my clothes in the washer/dryers here just once, I resolved that those greedy s.o.b.'s weren't going to get another euro cent from me, so long as I could help it.  So, for the past three months, I've been washing my laundry out by hand in huge Ziploc bags brought from home and in the sink.  And to those who say "you can't wash everything out in the sink," I say, "watch me."