Web Watching the Wash

There are sooo many reasons I think the Internet makes the world a better and more fun place, it's hard to think of which is the most significant. It's been a lot of fun embracing and adapting to so many of the new developments over the years. These days, I almost never buy stamps because I can pay bills online, I can use Google to find the answer to almost any question I ever have, I can chat with people around the world at little or no cost, and I can always find out what movie that guy has been in. That's just to name a few of them, and there are new things coming out all the time.

This article talks about one that would have made my college life so much better: online access to the status of university laundry facilities and machines that text message you when their cycle is ending. I can't even imagine the number of times I went to do my laundry in college only to find that there were no machines available, meaning I had to carry my stuff back home or, in an emergency, to another laundry place. What a complete waste of time! How great would it be to be able to look online to see how many washers were in use? And how great would it be to feel free to not hover over the machine so you could be there when it was finished, either to avoid someone hijacking your machine and unceremoniously dumping your newly washed clothes on the floor (typically in a puddle of used motor oil mixed with Quik-Krete brand cement mix) or (for the go-getters and anal retentives of the world) to quickly remove your things to avoid those dreaded wrinkles.

Of course, this development might mean that the laundry room will always be devoid of people except for those brief moments when they need to start, shift, or remove their loads of laundry. That in turn might ruin the over-romanticized notion of meeting potential dates and/or hookups while doing laundry. But I'm thinking the Internet will probably provide lots of ways for people to find dates and hookups.