Revenge of My Nemesis

JoeI'm feeling more comfortable with the washing machines now. I managed to figure this new one out without recourse to a dictionary for help with the instructional chart. Call me crazy, but it just doesn't seem like washing a load of clothes should have quite so much required reading material.

Today's little laundry revelation: I'm a laundry outlaw. A sort of illegal immigrant of the laundry world. I've been washing clothes without registering for a session first. Mind you, the English guide to this apartment failed to mention the bokningstavlan, but I suppose ignorance of law is no excuse and so forth. Anyway, I went down earlier to do a load of laundry, and the door was locked. This had never happened before—I'd just been walking right in—but this time I was forced to stop and look around. That's when I noticed the swipe pad for the electronic lock next to the door. This apartment building uses these little key fobs to give access to common areas, as well as to get you in the front door, in fact I'd just swiped it a moment before to get into the basement, so it wasn't too big a shock. This time, though, it didn't open the door, but rather activated another thing I hadn't paid any attention to (pictured above).

Ah, yes, perfect, another inexplicable electronic device with two pages of instructions, that's exactly what I needed to make my day complete.

Turns out, you have to use this thing to reserve the laundry room in advance. You pick a three hour window sometime in the coming week, reserve it, and then show up at the appropriate time with your laundry. When you swipe in during your reservation, the gadget will unlock the laundry room door to admit you. The only reason I was able to get in before is that the lock tends to stick, so the door wasn't closing all the way. It's byzantine, yes, but actually quite civilized, and certainly better than the alternative…