An American in Provence

As far as doing my own laundry is concerned, I have had some memorable moments. The first was when I realized (in graduate school, the first time I had to do my own laundry on a regular basis) that for the past six months I had been using just fabric softener in the washing machine. Yep, no detergent. Well, my clothes were soft at least. Hey- I thought Snuggle did both.

Haven't severly discolored anything, but my latest mishap came yesterday afternoon. I was drying some colored items, when the classic "What's that smell?" question was asked. Something was smelling not good, and coming from the kitchen. Went in the kitchen and it smelled like it was coming from the washer/dryer, but not particularly. We pulled everything out and started to fold. I thought perhaps the rubber lining the door was a bit burnt or something, until I came across my long underwear/winter pjs. The top had hardened and shrunk to a size that not even Manon, our 4 year old neice could wear. It smelled horrid, like burnt wool. The entire apartment quite quickly picked up this smell, and we had company coming over in an hour. We opened all the windows (in winter, but not TOO cold) and tried to air it out as best as we could. Yikes. Learned that lesson. I was sure I had washed it before, but perhaps I didn't dry it in the dryer last time.

Here it is, hanging next to a normal sized ankle sock for comparison.