October 8, 1996

I don't think that under normal circumstances I'd spend so much time talking about laundry. In fact I'm not sure the topic would even come up if it weren't for the fact that we've been driving with fifteen pair of underwear and six pair of socks dripping from our dashboard. Oh, they're not ours; that wouldn't warrant the pen. They belong to Hana and Craig who washed them three days ago and have been cursed with wet clothes ever since. We helped them wash and ring three loads at 4 pm on Sunday. The sky was only slightly grey and surely by morning the layers of cotton and nylon would be moisture free. And they would have been, had they been taken down before bedtime. "When the sun comes out in the morning," Craig assured Hana, "they'll be crispy." Well the sun didn't come out, the rain did - lots of it, all night and all morning and all the next day too. So into air-tight plastic bags the lot went, stewing in their dampness.

We hung them out again a day-and-a-half later at a clearing we found in a forest on a mountain, 1200 meters above sea level. All seemed well and good - the clothes would be dry soon. But soon didn't came before the rain did, and again they suffered another moist night. We rung them out and tossed them back into their bags.

Attempt number three came on the mountain road to Ioannina. We pulled over for lunch on a patch of grassy tundra and out came the clothesline and up went the clothes. And then down came the clothes. "What is it with these clothes. They attract rain."

So we've given up on Mother Nature. Since our van has heat and Blue Chunder doesn't, we've volunteered to plaster wet, slightly mildewed underwear to our dash and crank the heat to high. The socks are next to take center stage. Two T-shirts are drying on our couch; bras are hanging from the sink; the table arm is a perch for shorts. I've been rotating underwear regularly and it's been working. So far I've folded nine dry pair; only the five resting on the vents to go. Outside it is raining on the windshield. "Ha! Rain all you want. You ain't touching these clothes."