Posts Tagged ‘Clothing’

 

wonderwash-1

Awhile back my washing machine went kaput, and I didn’t want to run out and buy a new washing machine, because I am incredibly cheap. Being cheap I decided to look for an alternative method for washing clothes. Sure, there was hand washing. That was an option, and one I did do! Ultimately the hand washed clothes came out cleaner and nicer smelling than when I stuck them in the washing machine. Still, it was a lot of trouble, and was difficult for me, so I decided to look for more options.

To my amazement, there are TONS of washing machine alternatives. So, I picked up one up to see how well it would suit me. The one I bought was called The WonderWash! Not to be confused with Wonder Washer(As seen on TV), those are two totally different things. I mean, they accomplish the same thing, but work differently.

So, what is it? Well it’s a small lightweight non-electric washing machine alternative powered via hand crank and it costs roughly about 50 bucks. Does it work? Well yes, kind of. I mean, it sort of manages to wash clothes, although it’s really not all that effective. You see there’s no agitator in the barrel to beat on the clothes, so you can essentially accomplish the same level of clean by swirling your clothes in a bucket for 5 mins. Which, would be cheaper than this system. The clothes just don’t come out that clean(as I said, it’s the same as swirling clothes in a bucket) and in fact you get cleaner clothes by washing the clothes by hand.

The unit it’s self is fairly sturdy and made out of high quality plastic. It’s definitely not cheaply made, however the clips used to hold the system on it’s “Stand” come out rather easily which can be annoying if you are using the washer in a sink or tub, and the clip goes down the drain.

The hole for your clothes also is fairly small. Not too much of an issue for light clothes like underwear, socks, t-shirts and the likes, but stiff clothing like jeans are a bit tough to get in and out and even when you get the clothes out there’s a good chance water will be everywhere! So make sure you use this outside, or in a sink or tub or some place where having water pool out everywhere isn’t an issue.

Another thing that irked me, was the thing didn’t include any kind of assembly manual. Sure, it’s not too difficult to figure out how it’s put together, but it still would be handy to have that little bit of help along the way. Granted, most likely I wouldn’t have read the manual anyway but there are people out there who actually read manuals! It’s for them that some kind of instruction should have been included.

All in all, I wouldn’t really recommend this to anyone, since there are better washing machine alternatives out there (Including hand washing) but it does SLIGHTLY work! Though the effort put into hand cranking the device just isn’t equal to the level of cleanliness received. It does get to be a bit difficult to crank, since all that water in the barrel weighs it down quite well! Plus you are expected to crank it for 5 mins.

Thankfully I got my washing machine fixed, so this doesn’t need to be used anymore! I’ll still hold onto it and keep it in the closet. It might come in useful during a  sharkalypse or something. You know, if I need to wash clothes, but don’t want to stand by the waters edge hand washing them because of Zombie Sharks. Someone better get Syfy channel on the horn, cause that would make an excellent SyFy movie!

The other day the unthinkable occurred! My washing machine broke down! This is a horrible time of year for things to break down, yet it always seems like if somethings going to break, it happens around Christmas. Why? Because Christmas hates me, that’s why!

Anyway, as I was saying! My Washing machine broke down, and because I put things off to the very last minute, all my clothes were dirty. I couldn’t very well go to a laundromat wearing dirty stinky clothes! I was running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off! What was I going to do? I can’t go wash clothes without clean clothes…and I can’t get clean clothes without washing my clothes! It was quite a paradox!

After I calmed down a moment, a thought struck me from out of the blue(that totally just reminded me of that song “Believe it or not“)..Washing Machines are a relatively new invention! They were only invented in the 1850’s, what did people do BEFORE then?? They washed them by hand of course! I could do that! Of course, I wasn’t alive in the 1800’s, so I wasn’t sure what the proper way to do clothes washing by hand…you know, other than what I saw being done on the first season of Walking Dead, so I googled it!

After reading up on how it’s done PROPERLY I did it myself, and they came out smelling and looking nicer and cleaner than when I machine washed them. However, I am old and not in very good condition, so afterwards my arms, and back were killing me…they still are killing me actually. Still, at least I had clean clothes now! So, there’s that!

A homeless man in Paris

Image via Wikipedia

Every town has them. Even those small sleepy little towns, you know the towns where everybody knows each other, and people have a habit of stopping and greeting you when you are walking down the street on a quiet weekend. I know this for a fact, because I live in one of these towns and yes, we have our share of homeless.

There are two homeless people in town, that I know of. These are the people who our community views as “Invisible”. The few people who do acknowledge their existence don’t view them in a positive light, in fact most of the few people who comment about the homeless end up belittling them, despite the fact that they know absolutely nothing about them.

“They are crazy!” “They are hostile!” “They carry diseases!”

These are the things people mutter about the homeless in this community. Are they correct in their claims? Who’s to say? They could be right, but the fact is, these claims are not based on any kind of fact. They come to these conclusions, simply because they have tattered clothes, are unshaven, and wear stained clothing. Those are their reasons for assuming they are nut-bag psycho black plague dealing dirtwads.

Fact of the matter, at least ONE of the homeless people in town, is actually quite friendly and nice. I couldn’t exactly tell you what his name is, because when I introduced myself he introduced himself as “Road Runner” and im fairly certain that is NOT the name his parents gave him at birth, however it is the name I suppose he chooses to go by.

I originally met him as I stopped by the local park, to use the public restroom, and as I was leaving the toilets a gruff voice called out behind me saying “Get out of my house!” Needless to say, I stopped and turned around to see who had just declared the bathroom their home. It was the homeless guy named who went by the name of “Road runner”.

We talked for a while, he told me a bit about himself, and surprisingly he didn’t even smell. Homeless folks sometimes are cleaner than you would imagine apparently. Turns out the man known as “Road runner” isn’t carrying diseases, he isn’t a total nutjob and even to my surprise, he isn’t totally filthy. He’s quite simply a friendly and good man who’s lost his family and fell on hard times and had nobody to lend a helping hand when he hit bottom. What happened to him could happen to any of us, under the right extreme circumstances.

The other homeless guy? Well, i’ve not talked to him. Neither has Road Runner, but according to Road runner the other homeless guy is a filthy nutjob.