Broken?

Speaking of washing machines, yesterday The Husband and I were at his parents’ house for a family birthday party. On Saturday, I suggested to The Husband that we plan to bring our laundry and do it while at the party. I like being able to do my own laundry and not take too much advantage of people’s generosity by just dropping the laundry off like a spoiled college student. The Husband agreed that this was a fine idea, and so yesterday morning we loaded the car with two laundry baskets and detergent and headed down to the In-Laws’.

Upon arrival, Father-In-Law was sitting on the porch. Now, we hadn’t warned them that we were bringing laundry, but I knew they wouldn’t mind. Still, we were there for a party, and although the party was very informal it felt a bit rude to come in with dirty laundry and I sheepishly said to Father-In-Law, “We brought laundry.”

“No problem,” he said. “We’ll just split it up.”

“Huh?” I thought to myself. “What does he mean, ‘split it up’?” Since I had no idea what that meant, I foolishly decided to ignore it. So after lunch, while people were generally milling around, I decided to toss in the first load of sheets and underwear. I couldn’t find the light switch for the laundry area, but Father-In-Law helpfully turned it on for me as I was loading the washing machine. I turned it on and went into the living room, secure in the knowledge that we would have clean sheets to sleep on that night.

About fifteen minutes later, Mother-In-Law came up to me and said, “Were you planning to do laundry?”

“I’m already doing it,” I told her.

“But the dryer is broken,” she said.

It seems that their dryer broke last week. The Husband knew, because Mother-In-Law called to ask him for the model number of our dryer. But The Husband never mentioned it to me, and then forgot. Mother-In-Law saw that we had brought laundry, but didn’t mention anything to me instead saying to Father-In-Law, “I hope they’re not planning to do that here since the dryer is broken.” Apparently, she didn’t think we really brought laundry since The Husband was well aware that the dryer was broken.

But what kills me is that Father-In-Law knew that the dryer was broken but didn’t say anything as I walked by him with my dirty laundry and then started the washing machine right in front of him! I still don’t really know what was going on in his head, there. I guess he assumed we really needed to get laundry done, and by “split it up” he meant that we would bring it somewhere else to dry. Which, ultimately, is what happened. Because instead of obnoxiously dropping off our laundry at my in-laws’ house, I had to send my brother-in-law back home to his house with my clean, wet laundry, some of which was underwear, to put in his dryer.

I swear, I’m trying not to take advantage of their generosity.