Essay of the day: Laundry Through the Ages! (so fresh n so clean)

[wishbone]

Laundry might have began back in the days of Mesopotamia (sp? these essays don't require proper spelling) where the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers met and created a sweet sweet concoction of water that people flourished around. Obviously since this was the cradle of civilization, it also had to be the birth of laundry beacuse let's face it, it didn't take people a thousand yaers before they realized they couldn't get a date unless they looked and smelled good.

It began probably IN those rivers as people would beat their clothing against rocks and agitate them in the fast moving current. Soon it was learned that using chemicals would assist, and native americans (also known still as indians to the southerners who'ev never met real indians) used yucca-root and later, soaproot. Who knows which came first, the word soap, or the name soaproot, but one would hope they would have made the connection that since it's called soaproot it might just BE made of soap. Way to go, natives.

If movies have taught me anything, it's that Brad Pitt is a wealth of information. In fightclub beyond the point of how to make nitroglycerin, right before he gives edward norton a chemiacl burn, he let's us in on a little ditty about people learned certain areas of those rivers got their clothes cleaner due to the presence of lye. THIS IS A FACT, BRAD PITT DOES NOT LIE. He also was raised in the times of Troy and was part of epic battles, and could beat Chuck Norris in a "i have more sayings about me on websites" contest.

First people used washing boards to scrub their clothes against once they evolved to not standing in lye-filled river water. However, soon rednecks discovered that washboards were wonderful musical instruments, and soon these devices ceased to exist amoung the peasant class for cleaning the clothes of the hoity toities. Luckily the industrial revolution was set to begin, and before people begun working in smoke filled factories to create humorous situations we'd all look back and frown upon, they created laundry technology!

The first such devious dirt dispoing device (alliteration, for you playing along!) was the mangle by brit standarsd, also known as the wringer in the New World. We've all seen this, you handcrank clothes through it which WRINGES or...MANGLES out the water. I like the use of the word mangle, so let's go with it. So yea it mangles the water out of it, creating semi-dry clothing, which might have been perfectly dry back int he day, we all know how things change. Anyways later people created the first washing machines with were tubes with agitating motors inside, but you still had to handcrank and mangled clothes through. Soon people realized that's dumb and why not just mechanize the whole thing, sort of like the mechanical turk, which as nerds in the magician circle like me know, was really a doll controlled by a man and played Chess. Really.

So where was I...oh yes, so they decided to make spin cycles and all that, and later clothes dryers which were the same machines, but designed to spin clothes through hot blowing air rather than hot blowing...water.

This wiki article, for some reason, mentions that ranchers int he western united states put their clothes in water tight containers with detergent, put them in the back of their pick up truck and driev around, which agitates the dirt out, later to be hung up on a clothesline to dry. There's a citation still to be posted...I wonder why, maybe Cowboy Bob wasn't good enough.

Today's modern world has relinquished such ideas upon our planet as the tunnel washer, also called a continuos batch washer. It's a computerized industrial super conducting AWESOME machine designed to handle huge loads, and i'm not making any sort of sxeually natured joke there, either. No sir. Basically the tunnel washer is full of different sections where a huge screw runs through them all (again, no jokes of that nature). As the screw moves in an in-and-out motion.....the clothes move from one end of the machien to another. Get your dirty head out of the gutter, or else you'll need to jump into a tunnel washer, friend.

Today we've got such incredible inventiosn as the Tide-Away pen, which is currently in a copyright infringment suit with Booster Juice as any use of the word 'away' in a commical manner is against their trademark on Bananas-A-Whey. Yes I made that up. HOWEVER look at the tide pen, it gets out stains with NO laundry what so ever. What does this mean? It means say goodbye to your washer and dryer, kids, the world is all about spot cleaning! Dry cleaners, rejoice! Your years of only cleaning clothing labeled improperly for your stores is over as more and more people will entrust you to rid their clothing of stains when shortages of tide pens occur! And you know what, laundromats are run by the same descendants of yore who cleaned clothes for the hoity toities, so they have generations of experience. Some may say you'll even hear clothing being mangled int he background for the heavier stains.

Now, given that all of the spot cleaning and dry cleaning will result in the death of washers and dryers, I forsee devices mainly designed to de-odorize clothes. Made of a combusting concoction of aluminum chloride, aluminum chlorohydrate, and aluminum zirconium (and scented with such things as classic musk, ocean breeze, and the ever popular fresh rain) these machines will merely make it possible to never smell bad in clothes EVER AGAIN! Is this a good thing? Will homeless people start marrying hollywood typse? I guess we shall wait and see, but one must wonder if they'll be able to afford such gadgetry, or if they'll be stuck working the drycleaners, mangling our clothes dreaming of a better tomorrow.

[tiedye]

wow. . .

A-

It could have used more muffin jokes. Next time, wizz, next time.

[wishbone]

i think my two ones from yesterday were better :(

[Mangle]

Originally Posted by wizzfish

I like the use of the word mangle, so let's go with it.

It's a great word.

[mapleleaf4ever]

Good one wizzy!