I haven't bought a Bonne Chance ticket for the Swiss lottery yet. This is mostly due to shyness and lack of French than any realistic understanding of how bleak the likelihood is of my numbers coming up, but heaps of locals surround the booth at the local shopping centre in their eagerness to find that 500,000 franc Scratchie that might pay off a fifth of their mortgage.
Giving gambling a Swiss miss might possibly explain the amusement I derive from our weirdly shaped FUST washing machine.
It was purchased second-hand via an expat website and is an upright device which is far cheaper than a front-loader. However it's also much narrower than the usual 5 - 7kg ones from Australia.
When you open the inside, you can see a round 'tyre' made of stainless steel. This is almost exactly the same as that found in a front loader but positioned 90% around. And, when closed, you can't sit there and watch it through the round window. It's a sacrifice I'm prepared to make to save over a thousand francs.
Back to Herr Fust. The little catch is flipped open and - Ta Da! - the washing is crammed in. A surprisingly decent amount of dirty clothes can be done and apart from it sounding like the first spaceship to cross the screen in Star Wars when it's on the spin cycle, I'm pretty happy with our three hundred franc find.
But there's more. When closed, the little internal tyre thingy reminds me of the prize barrels that used to feature on television shows so often when I was growing up.
"So kids, all of your entries into our big Win a Week with Winky Dink competition have been placed in this barrel here, and we'll ask Humphrey B Bear to do the honours and reach in to pick out a winner......."
Nope. Not me.
Still, it's been six whole months and not one single sock has gone AWOL yet, so I'll class that as a small win.
13 comments:
A big win. And you are right about the unfortunate appearance of the machine. Let this be a lesson she says in sonorous tones 'never judge a washing machine by appearances'. Despite the accuracy of many of those hoary sayings they give me the irrits.
Well I'll be damned, a top opening front loader!
What a great idea for small spaces.
I've never understood how socks go missing in the wash. I've never lost a single one. Ever.
My friends Glen Waverley and Merijn have one of those - they're great! And very space economical.
What a queer device. I am going to google it now.
Nothing about this particular model on the net. Your post came up in google. I did find an English Swiss forum for expats though. One wanted to install a washing machine in her? flat, but the building manager had issues. She said she couldn't cope with the draconian communal washing schedule. Can you believe how many people have uploaded videos to You Tube of their washing machines spin drying? And I thought I had no life.
I have one like that! A different brand, but looks exactly the same. It's worked great in the last three years.
It came with the apartment I rented, and the first time I used it I didn't realize I had to close the latch, and I stood there wondering at the strange and loud sounds coming out of it during the cycle...luckily I realized my mistake quickly enough, before anything broke :)
Can you add things to the cycle ten seconds after you press Start? The only downside of my front loader. Cause I always drop something on my way to loading it up.
EC, it's weird and slightly ugly but does what it's supposed to do. And the memory of hand-washing jeans, underwear, towels and sheets in the bath of the hotel room and then the apartment for the first six weeks is still a fresh memory....
River, you are a rare creature indeed and need to share your sock-saving secrets with the rest of us.
Pandora, are they Europeans by any chance??
Andrew, FUST is Switzerland's leading electrical store, so pretty well every white good is their own brand.
And yes - we're rather lucky because we have room for our own washing machine. A NZ friend has a specific day of the week - and time - in which she's allowed to do her washing. No deviation permitted.
Uf, you're lucky. Apparently breaking the latch leads to much more serious mechanical failures; similar to having no oil in your car.
Unfortunately no, Vanessa and that inability to press 'pause' and fling in the pair of jeans dropped in the hallway is the only downside.
Not much secrecy about it. The laundry hamper is right next to the washing machine. Freshly bathed and pyjama'd kids scoop up their clothes from the bathroom floor, take them to the laundry and drop them in the hamper. Two feet per child, two socks per child. Anything dropped along the way is easily spotted on the return trip and picked up to be immediately taken to the hamper. When removing washed clothes from the machine, the drum is slowly spun to check that nothing is left behind. Then the washing is hung. Socks are matched and hung together. when taking the dry clothes off the line, matched socks are straight away folded together. my mum did this, I still do this, and my daughters do it too. As does both of my sons who learned it from me when it was their turn to either hang or bring in the washing.
That's a great find. And it also provides amusement while you wash!
I do it the same way as River - and I have never lost a sock in the washing either.
River, I understand your advice and it's all common sense and something I did in Australia but somehow, they'd disappear..... on the other side of the world, however, this isn't happening :)
We ALL need amusement when doing the laundry Nicole!
EC, then you, like River, are one of my idols!
I remember those, we had one in Paris.Awesome little thing but I do emphasise 'little'
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