“Haven’t you been wearing those clothes for ages? They smell interesting” were the words of my friend the other day. I looked at her aghast, “What?! How could you think that? Of course I haven’t.” However the shameful truth was I had. Yes I will admit it; I had been wearing the same clothes for a week. Now I would like to point out here before you all avoid me like the plague, this didn’t mean I hadn’t been showering or changing my underwear. Because I had; I could be wearing a bin bag and would still ensure that I had only the best lingerie on underneath, I still have some standards. Nor was it that I was forced to wear the same outfit for a week due to a lack of clothes, my bursting wardrobe and overflowing drawers can testify to this.
Rather embarrassingly it was just due to plain laziness. There are exactly fifty-five stairs between my room and the washing machine and lugging my laundry basket down these said stairs is no walk in the park. Then more often than not after I have dragged my basket downstairs, usually having to run back to retrieve socks making a bid for freedom, I find there is no washing powder, so instead of doing what any normal person would and going out and buying some more, what do I do? I leave my washing there and go in the hope that when I return somehow miraculously a bottle of Persil will have appeared… This is yet to happen. And so I am left to find solutions to this lack of clothes, one being gym kit. Yes I have taken to wearing my gym kit to lectures, even when I have no intentions of going to the gym… Well if guys can do it? No one is going to question the trackies especially if you talk extra loudly about PBs and training times (I mean it was that or a Pocahontas outfit from a first year social). The other answer is just to not see the same friends until you have changed your clothes, that way they will never know you have been wearing that hoodie for six days. Trying to think of excuses as to why you can’t do lunch can start to become problematic:
“Sorry can’t do today, I… er have to finish that seminar reading?”
“But you told me you finished it this morning.”
“It’s extra reading, I just love the extra reading…”
“What?! Fine you clearly just don’t want to have lunch with me”
You would have thought that this would be enough to make me do laundry, but then the cold weather struck, and with single glazing and broken heating it was too cold to undress. The dash to the shower took mental preparation and somehow just as Victorian children were sewn into their clothes to keep them warm, I ended up just staying in the same old wool blue jumper and leggings just adding layers as it got more cold, until I realised the first layer I had put on had been on for so long I forgot what I was even wearing. Potentially a new low.
But it was not always like this, in first year I made such an effort – I never wore the same thing two days running, or rarely and it was so much easier with a tumbler dryer in halls, now drying without either a tumble dryer or a washing line is an epic task and takes days. But it is also the nights out, waking up hung over and making the effort to go to that early seminar is just so much easier in pyjamas I think wearing them to Firehouse that evening as I did, though is a step too far.
Reading this perhaps you think, “Well clearly she is just slightly grubby” and I would admit this last week I have been rather slack with the washing, but it doesn’t just seem to be me. One friend I spoke to admitted that realising she had nothing clean to wear she turned up to a seminar in a body con dress which is normally only reserved for Arena and Uggs. And what about guys? Guys seem to get away with it. The other morning after staying with a friend he got up and got dressed not bothering to change his boxers, when I asked why he didn’t put clean boxers on, he looked at me with such a mix of confusion and shock I may well have just told him he was never allowed to go to Timepiece again. Another boy I use to live with got to the stage where instead of washing his duvet cover he just bought a new set and his socks smelt so bad that his roommate made him keep them in a concealed box.
So before I leave university and have to take complete care of myself in the wide world where it is not acceptable to wear the same thing days on end, I am going to re-learn to do my washing. The thought of being told that my clothes smell interesting again is mortifying. Bulk buying Persil here I come!