August 30, 2008
For an American it’s difficult to grasp the civility of Swedish living.  An example: the laundry scheduler.  In the basement of the building where we’re staying is the laundry room, which is reserved by sliding and locking a “key button” for your apartment into a time/day slot.  Which makes you the exclusive, 3-hour-owner of a virtual laundry palace, with three washing machines, an electric dryer, racks and baskets on wheels, washing sinks, and tables for folding — all clean and ”free of charge,” no coins required.  Doing laundry yesterday, I couldn’t help but wonder what a Swede would think of the trickery and sample sale stampeding we used to engage in for the privilege of grabbing the two dingy quarter eating machines in the basement of our Brooklyn building.  And we felt lucky to live in a place with a laundry room!  I’m still laughing a little bit.

For an American it’s difficult to grasp the civility of Swedish living.  An example: the laundry scheduler.  In the basement of the building where we’re staying is the laundry room, which is reserved by sliding and locking a “key button” for your apartment into a time/day slot.  Which makes you the exclusive, 3-hour-owner of a virtual laundry palace, with three washing machines, an electric dryer, racks and baskets on wheels, washing sinks, and tables for folding — all clean and ”free of charge,” no coins required.  Doing laundry yesterday, I couldn’t help but wonder what a Swede would think of the trickery and sample sale stampeding we used to engage in for the privilege of grabbing the two dingy quarter eating machines in the basement of our Brooklyn building.  And we felt lucky to live in a place with a laundry room!  I’m still laughing a little bit.

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