Laundry is a mundane, easy task we all deal with regularly. It’s never been a sore spot in my life until I tried to do laundry in our apartment building in Santiago, Chile. Our host explained in an email that I needed to reserve time to use the laundry room at the front desk of the building, and I managed to book my 2-hour block on a Wednesday morning in my mangled Spanish.
Wednesday morning came and I grabbed our trash bag of dirties and our awkward plastic sack of detergent (it’s meant to be a refill for a bottle you already have, but I was too cheap to buy the actual bottle to start) and headed down the elevator to the laundry room. I used the photo feature in Google Translate to read all the signs posted in the room to make sure I was following the rules (the standard “clean the dryer filter,” “put detergent in before clothes,” etc.) and loaded up the washer and THEN noticed the little coin slot on the machine. Now, in the message from our host, he said that I could leave money in the apartment when we checked out for my laundry use or he would charge me through Airbnb. So I hoped the coin slot was an old relic from laundry days past, and tried the start button. Nothing. I stared at the machine for what felt like the right amount of time before trying the button again. Nothing.
Luckily a guy came in at that point to take his stuff out of the dryer. I asked in toddler-level Spanish if I have to pay to use the washer, and he said yes. I asked him how much it was and he said ocho mil pesos (8,000), which seemed like an extremely high price for a load of laundry. (It’s about US$8.70.) (He also said other things that I didn’t understand.) I thought maybe the cost was for the washer and the dryer, even though that’s still really expensive, right? Anyway, I went back upstairs to check my coin situation and I only had 400 pesos in coins and large bills from the ATM (20,000 bills). I decided my best option was to go to the corner store a couple blocks away and try to get the necessary change, so I put on proper pants and shoes (the hassle!) and headed out.
At the store, I grabbed a bottle of water and a loaf of bread (we were almost out, so that was handy) and went to the counter. When I pulled out the 20,000 bill, the cashier was visibly annoyed (the total cost was less than 4,000). He asked if I had smaller bills and I said no. He asked if I had a card and I said I needed the change. He got more annoyed but counted out the change. I had only secured 2 more 100 peso coins from the transaction, nowhere near what I needed to wash my clothes that were currently sitting in the machine soaking up detergent and eating away at my 2-hour reservation window. I held up the smallest bill he had given me and asked if he would give me coins for it. It was a hard no for him.
Defeated, I walked back to the apartment building and decided to ask the front desk person what to do. I asked him how much it cost to do laundry, and he also told me ocho mil pesos, and other things I didn’t understand. I pulled out all my money and said, I don’t have enough, do I? Could he give me change? He said no and then a lot more stuff that I didn’t understand, and then asked if I understood him. I pulled out my phone and asked him to repeat himself for Google Translate, which he kindly did. He was telling me that the community pays for the cost of the laundry, which confused me even more. I told him what our host had said, that I could use the machines if I reserved them, and then I would be charged later. The guy at the desk spoke into my phone again and said that I didn’t pay the machines. I just needed tokens. I repeated, tokens? He said yes. I asked how I get a token, and he said that I get it from the front desk. I just stood there for a second, so very confused. Then I asked if I could have a token. I think he then realized I was actively trying to do laundry, not just asking about the process generally, and he reached into a drawer and gave me 2 tokens: 1 for the washer and 1 for the dryer. I thanked him excessively and apologized, and then hurried over to the laundry room to try my luck.
The token (ficha in Spanish) slipped into the slot, I pushed the start button, and ta-da! The washer started. I put the token for the dryer in my pocket and went upstairs to record my laundry saga to laugh at later in life. For now, I’m still embarrassed and more committed to practicing Spanish.
