I once had a friend whose mom either always left damp clothes in the dryer or she used super high heat because his clothes ALWAYS smelled sour. Many years ago I had a similar problem back in the day before I learned the danger of high heat drying— I had washed a bunch of clothes for a show, packed them and then headed off to Cleveland for the Show. That night as I unpacked I was struck by the unmistakable smell of sour laundry— I checked the next piece of clothing from my bag- sour. Next? Sour. The whole suitcase was sour. I smelled the clothes I was wearing.
You guessed it.
Sour.
The hotel had a laundry service, $30 per item and they’d have them back in 24 hours. Calculating the total to be about $4500 if I had all my laundry done and the prospect of doing the first day of the show in my gym shorts and t-shirt which I planned on sleeping in I asked the front desk if there was an all night laundry around— sure enough there was about six miles away.
So I took two pillowcases off my bed and stuffed them full of clothes and made my way downstairs in said gym shorts and t-shirt (with, I might add, brown dress shoes which were the only shoes I’d packed) and jumped in a cab and got over to the Laundromat.
Now I don’t spend a lot of time in Laundromats, when I lived in New York we had a washer and dryer in the basement, but more importantly one of the perks of where i worked as a complimentary laundry service with free pickup and drop off. I got the the laundromat and realized I had no detergent. An older lady there took pity on me and let me use half her detergent (I slipped her $10 for it) and I proceeded to wash all my clothes. It took me about 10 minutes to realize I didn’t have to sit there and wait for the first load to wash the second, I just jumped onto a second machine.
The laundromat as the night wears on is an interesting place to say the least— especially one which was not in the best neighborhood of Cleveland. I read every magazine on the media table, read three different newspapers and was thrlled when things were ready to go into the dryer.
The dryer was the biggest challenge. It seemed like no matter what the clothes just wouldn’t dry. I think I had to run 3 cycles before I gently started folding things and was ready to stuff them into my pillowcases when I stopped dead in my tracks.
I lifted the pillowcase up to my nose— sour.
SOUR!
I looked around for a box or something to carry these clothes back to my hotel and the best I could find was a brand new GLAD ™ huge black garbage bag. I stuffed one pillowcase into the other and stuffed them into a smaller plastic bag, tied it shut and tossed it in the trashbag, called a cab and walked back through the lobby of my Hotel in my stylish outfit.
I got back into my room, smelled my suitcase which was fine— and then called the front desk and said I needed two fresh pillowcases because the ones I had smelled sour.
Thrilled with my cleverness I turned in after housekeeping brought up two fresh pillows and I had a good show.