By Jonathan Kay
Dear Reader, I would like to confide in you about something that has irked me to the very depths of my soul. Now in general, I don’t dedicate strong negative emotions to things in my life. The only part of this bountiful planet I truly despise is the Dallas Cowboys, but a second nuisance has arisen, even rivaling my generational hatred for “America’s Team”: GW’s Laundry system. Now while you, specifically, dear reader, may be familiar with GW’s practice of wringing their students dry of every last disposable penny, I do farm a reader base that is both international and intergalactic, so I must first explain the situation to your literary compatriots.
For the uninitiated, GW’s laundry system is thus. If you live in one of their buildings, approximately more than one mile from any inexpensive laundromat, you must do your laundry on the ground floor or basement of your dorm building. You see, the average cost of doing a load of laundry at a public laundromat is usually 25-50 cents, and one can typically fit all their laundry in one machine if they desire. GW innovates on this societal norm by increasing prices and decreasing possible load size. Each wash and dry is $1.75, and considering the teensy-tiny size of each washer and dryer, you could easily spend almost $10 per laundry session. Seriously, if you translated the size of the average, non-GW Local enjoying brain to washing machine proportions, it would be almost as small. These greedy policies were a standard practice many a semester, and yet, during the principal days of this Fall, that archaic system was seemingly abolished in my building, Shenkman Hall. Laundry was free, and the great hippos of this good university rejoiced in unison. It was a truly touching display that illustrated the universality of the human condition. Then one fateful day dear reader, it all came crashing down.
The downfall of this blissful period in American history came hard and fast. One crisp Fall day, ominous posters mandating we “download the SpeedQueen app to pay for your laundry” appeared across the pillars and walls of GW dorm laundry rooms across this Foggiest of Bottoms. A return to the days of the two-dollar wash and dry was upon us. As I adjusted to this dystopian nightmare, I took solace in the knowledge that I could use my GWorld to pay for this scam. Well, more accurately, I was content in the knowledge that the people that actually had GWorld to spend would be able to use it for this malicious business practice because I am a pretty cool guy as many people are saying. And my mood was ever brightened when I realized GW generously gave us a laundry fund to spend before we had to dip into our Gbucks. And then my jaw dropped. 25 dollars. 25 dollars for an entire semester of laundry. Does GW think we own London Tipton-sized wardrobes? No, they must know we don’t, considering they gave us dressers that would make that impossible. They have to know that this is like a month’s worth of laundry money, if you really stretch it, right? But as an optimist, as someone that makes sure to leave my glasses half full whenever I drink my drinkies, I focus on the bright side. At least we can pay with our monopoly money. And then, as if reading my mind, the laundry-doer next to me goes: “and we can’t even pay with our GWorld? What a joke!” This completely real interaction just ruined me. I sulked back to my room, laundry sack dragging behind me, and sank into the depths of despair and also my couch. And that, dear reader, was the worst day of my life.
