sudsy bliss

Yes, it's true. I've bought a washing machine. I'm ecstatic in a way that's really unwholesome from the viewpoint of my anti-housework worldview.

Up to now we've taken our laundry down the street and paid to have it done for us. It's cheap, it's fast (usually only 24 hours), and they know us there so we never have to try to explain ourselves in Thai anymore. But many, many of our things have been shrunk. Many others have been mixed up with the laundry of other farang, to be sorted out later by us. It's a long, sweaty walk with a full laundry bag. After our visit home last month, I decided I was ready to indulge in the luxury of my own washing machine.


What's a luxury? It's hard to define. Our apartment comes wired with cable TV and high-speed internet, neither of which we had in the U.S.

However, some purchases we've made mark us as veritable libertines among our neighbors. These are such extravagances as:

• a kitchen sink, which sits outside on the porch.
• a water heater for our shower.
• the aforementioned and asidepictured washing machine.

We didn't have a washing machine of our own in the U.S., but we did do our own laundry (our apartment complex had a coin laundry). We certainly had a kitchen sink, and our showers were always toasty warm. These things didn't seem like luxuries.

What's a necessity? What's a luxury? What's an extravagance? It's all a matter of point of view, I guess.

But I can tell you that, necessity, luxury, or extravagance, I LOVE my washing machine.