{"id":316,"date":"2009-01-31T06:15:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-31T06:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2009\/01\/laundry-casualty.html"},"modified":"2009-01-31T06:15:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-31T06:15:00","slug":"laundry-casualty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2009\/01\/laundry-casualty.html","title":{"rendered":"Laundry Casualty"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m in the midst of dealing with a laundry casualty, but first I guess I should talk about how laundry is done around here.<\/p>\n

We don’t have our own washers and dryers, we have a “laundry service”. This takes a little getting used to, and I was blessed to have a couple girlfriends over here who could explain how laundry works here. Nonetheless, I STILL didn’t come completely prepared.<\/p>\n

You drop off your laundry at a drop off point, not dissimilar to dropping off dry-cleaning. You fill out a form and the attendant counts out the items you have and itemizes them on a ticket. 72 hours later, you can pick up said laundry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2009 01 10 Southwest Asia<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2009 01 10 Southwest Asia<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The already-folded non-uniform clothing, plus uniform socks, fitness gear and t-shirts comes back in a somewhat-vacuum-sealed bag, while uniforms come back on a hangar.<\/p>\n

At first I thought, “This is great<\/strong><\/em>!” Those who know me know my disdain with laundry<\/a>. For 90 days I’ll have no worries — clean clothes presented to me! WOW! And it’s the Doha Marriott hotel doing my laundry…that’s a good thing, right?<\/p>\n

Um….no<\/strong>?<\/p>\n

This laundry service is brutal<\/em> on my clothes and I’m glad I didn’t invest in much more than Target-caliber undies, sports bras and white socks for this trip. I’ll show you why right here: <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2009 01 10 Southwest Asia<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

See that stupid little sticker? It’s a cloth sticker with a number inked onto it. The example you see is on one of my green uniform socks. The fabric on the sticker is similar to a what’s on a cloth Band-Aid, except a little more stiffened. The number sticker is stuck to each article of clothing…somewhere.<\/p>\n

“Where?”<\/p>\n

Who knows…front, back, waistband, top, bottom, inside the article of clothing, outside the article…<\/p>\n

So when I get each batch of clothing back, I go through and peel off the stickers. So I have to undo the folding that someone at the Marriott had already done — just to peel off those stickers…if it’s on the outside of a uniform item then it can’t be there, and if it’s on the inside of the article of clothing I end up annoyed by the little sticker. So I just peel them off…always taking a few sock, underwear, sports bra or t-shirt fibers with it.<\/p>\n

In addition, the stickers leave (a) a sticky adhesive residue and (b) ink bleed-through. Since I didn’t bring my best stuff, this isn’t too horrible, unless it’s bleeding through my already-thin AF fitness shirts. And I’m starting to get annoyed by that.<\/p>\n

The clothing is boiled during its rinse cycle. So no colorfast or high-quality lingerie. That’s fine, I don’t have anything in either category here with me anyway.<\/p>\n

Back to the original topic: yesterday I experienced my first laundry casualty — at pick-up time, the attendant opens up the bag of folded laundry, counts out the items, then carefully puts it back. Yesterday a pair of my AF Fitness uniform shorts were missing. The attendant caught it right away (which is a good thing), marked up my receipt that we were short one pair of shorts and told me to come back in 48 hours. “Strays” go into some pile somewhere and I can check to see if the shorts come back as a stray. Otherwise, they will reimburse me.<\/p>\n

And I sure hope it resolves soon. Like I said before, there’s a 72 hour turnaround, and I figured a minimum of 6 of everything (i.e., white socks, sports bras and AF fitness uniforms) would suffice. It does, but barely. I have exactly 6 sets of AF fitness uniforms. So when I’m short a pair of fitness shorts, I’ll run out before the next set of laundry is available unless I keep VERY clean (not likely here, I work out daily)…<\/p>\n

Therefore, while I enjoy not having to run my clothes throught the washer and dryer, the laundry service here is so brutal on your clothing — you can’t expect better when they’re processing THOUSANDS of servicemembers’ laundry — I probably won’t be able to use much of this stuff when I get home. The elastic will be decomposed, and they’ll be peppered with adhesive spots and ink stains.<\/p>\n

Paul, if you’re reading this: recommend 8 sets of PT gear!!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m in the midst of dealing with a laundry casualty, but first I guess I should talk about how laundry is done around here. We don’t have our own washers and dryers, we have a “laundry service”. This takes a little getting used to, and I was blessed to have a couple girlfriends over here […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[],"tags":[13,63,616],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5ycQ0-56","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":189,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2008\/07\/this-laundromat-thing-aint-so-bad.html","url_meta":{"origin":316,"position":0},"title":"This Laundromat Thing Ain’t So Bad","date":"16 July 08","format":false,"excerpt":"The washers and dryers here are ENORMOUS!!! A week's worth of laundry for a family of 4 all fit into ONE washer!I've divided the clothes among 3 dryers to save a little time.","rel":"","context":"In \"housework\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":317,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2009\/02\/laundry-casualty-update.html","url_meta":{"origin":316,"position":1},"title":"Laundry Casualty Update","date":"01 February 09","format":false,"excerpt":"I got a \"new\" pair of shorts from the laundry folks, since they lost a pair of mine.I'm putting the word \"new\" in quotes because I can't say for certain whether they're new or not. For all I know they were misplaced from someone else's batch of laundry. They look\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"air force reserves\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":65,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2008\/02\/sumter-on-a-payday-laundry-poll-results-too-like-mother-like-son.html","url_meta":{"origin":316,"position":2},"title":"Sumter on a Payday — Laundry Poll Results, too — Like Mother, Like Son","date":"02 February 08","format":false,"excerpt":"Greetings from Sumter, SC! I'm drilling this weekend, but I have wireless in the lodging room on base (so long as I'm near the window, and not at the desk). That's me, the \"Moody AFB, GA\" hit on the Feedjit.com applet on the right. The open internet access routes via\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"air force reserves\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":45,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2008\/01\/laundry-day.html","url_meta":{"origin":316,"position":3},"title":"Laundry Day!","date":"17 January 08","format":false,"excerpt":"It's laundry day in the Vollmer house. For those who don't know, I HATE laundry. Always have. I was quite lucky as a kid -- I did a lot of chores in my house growing up (washing dishes, mowing the lawn) but laundry was never one of them. I think\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"housework\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1066,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2012\/05\/homemade-laundry-soap.html","url_meta":{"origin":316,"position":4},"title":"Major Mom’s “Back to Basics” Campaign: Homemade Laundry Soap","date":"29 May 12","format":false,"excerpt":"Has anyone else noticed the prices of laundry detergent skyrocketing?*** How about Tide for nearly $12 per bottle (24 loads)??? Or $12 for 40 of those new Tide Pod thingies? I've been paying about $7-8 for a bottle of All Free & Clear, which advertised 64 loads of laundry for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"back to basics\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/IMG_3448-1024x768.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":171,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2008\/07\/look-at-me-im-you.html","url_meta":{"origin":316,"position":5},"title":""Look at me! I’m you!"","date":"02 July 08","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes. 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