In August 1986, I moved to Provo, Utah, to begin my college education at BYU. I lived in the dorms named Helaman Halls. I was on the second floor in Taylor Hall. My roommate was my cousin Michael Newswander.
When I lived in Taylor Hall, the shared bedrooms included space for two people (bed, desk, small closet, and a few drawers for clothes. The second-floor hallway included 16 bedrooms (8 on each side of the hall). All 16 guys in these rooms shared one common bathroom that included sinks, mirrors, toilet stalls, and an open shower room with 8 or 10 shower heads.
There were common rooms at the end of the hallway where we could get together and hang out. This was also where girls could come to visit. (However, the guys on my floor had an interesting relationship with the resident assistant (RA)). As a result, we were under restrictions almost every week and our girl visiting privileges were suspended.
We also had a common laundry room in the basement of the building. This laundry room served approximately 200 guys who lived in Taylor Hall. I recall about 6 or so washing machines along one wall and 6 or so dryers along a different wall. The washers and dryers were coin-operated. There was a dollar bill changer in the corner that would give you quarters in exchange for $1 or $5 bills. In the middle of the room, there were several tables and chairs for studying while you waited on your laundry.
Early in the semester (sometime in September), I was studying at the table while I waited for my clothes in the washing machine. I had been lucky to find an open washer when I came down to the laundry room. Even though all the washers were full and in operation, I was the only one in the laundry room waiting for my clothes. Some of the dryers were running but there were a couple with no clothes and an open door.
While I was studying, another guy came into the room with an armload of clothes. I will call this guy "Clueless." Clueless looked around the room and walked to a dryer with an open door. He placed his clothes in the dryer, closed the door, and left the room. NOTE: Clueless did not insert any quarters in the dryer or push the start button on the dryer.
When my clothes finished in the washer, I transferred them to another open dryer and started the dry cycle. A couple of other students came in to move their clothes to dryers or to retrieve their dry clothes from the dryers.
At one point, a student needed to put his newly washed clothes in a dryer, but all the dryers were running except the one into which Clueless had placed his clothes. This second guy opened the dryer door, removed Clueless' dry clothes, and placed them in one of the rolling clothes baskets in the room.
This was a common occurrence. The room had several rolling clothes baskets (like the one in the picture). If you came to the laundry room and the only option was a machine with finished clothes, you would put the clothes (whether wet or dry) in the rolling basket and then use the newly empty machine. Some guys even folded other guys' laundry just to be nice. (Even I might have done that time or two.)
This is one of the reasons I stayed in the laundry room while my clothes were washing/drying. I did not want someone else handling my laundry.
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| the baskets in our laundry room looked like this one |
While I was folding my dried clothes before heading back upstairs to my room, Clueless returned to the laundry room. He went to the dryer where he left his clothes and saw his clothes were no longer in the dryer. He noticed his clothes in the nearby laundry basket. He moved the basket over next to one of the tables in the room, folded his clothes, picked up the stack of folded clothes, and left the room!
I did not have the heart to tell him.
I still wonder how long it took Clueless to figure out how to wash his clothes properly.
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