Adventures in... Laundry?!
5/25 '26
(Image above is unrelated - just a crop of some artwork I recently did which will be showing up on my art blog soon...)
Most hotels these days have laundry facilities for their guests. Especially those designed for longer stays (ie - they have kitchenettes). It is remarkable how frequently most or all of the machines do not work.
Buuut, I'm staying in a brand new hotel. You can still smell the newness of the carpets in the room. THAT new. So I really didn't forsee a problem.
* I go to the laundry. See the signs that say the card readers aren't working (there don't seem to be any present) and that you have to use quarters. No problem - I have cash. It will take $5 to wash and dry one load (all I have for clothes - partly for this reason).
* I go to the front desk. She doesn't have quarters.
* Go to the minimart next door. They can only sell me $3 in quarters.
* Go to the Wendy's next to that. They sell me $2 more.
* Return to the hotel. Load the machine. Start putting in quarters and the coin slot jams. You have to be fucking kidding me. Load laundry into a different machine and use almost all of my remaining quarters to get it started. I can try to air dry? Maybe? Before my crazy early flight tomorrow? (I have visions of running through the San Jose airport in wet clothes. Lovely.)
* Talk to the front desk girl again. She manages to get the cleaning folks and maintenance folks to gather together their quarters to reimburse me for the lost quarters because they can't get into the machines - the manager has the key (of course they do).
So I'm good. Laundry is in the dryer now.
I would have made it work regardless. I've washed laundry in my bathroom sink and air dried it in the past. One advantage to keeping my AC on pretty much constantly is that my rooms never have any humidity in the air.
But really? I'm just annoyed that hotels offer a service, but then both allow shit to not work (they just pass the buck "it's a different company that offers... yadda yadda" AND then don't provide something so simple as quarters to utilize that service.
I know - first world problems. Also, why, Matt, didn't you just drive to do laundry elsewhere?
Because I don't have a car at the moment. So I could have jumped in a Lyft, but that's one expensive load of laundry!
In related news - I love the decor to this hotel (which is near Silicon Valley):
And lastly, one from my room (which I really like):
This third hotel in Osaka doesn't have washers though... and their affiliated laundry service is unavailable because blah blah blah... and one elevator is down because mutter mutter... and guys are literally washing all the windows this week so close your curtains
Incredible bathrooms though