Before moving to Joplin to go to Missouri Southern, I had to learn to do my own laundry. I did not have any choice in the matter, but learning to wash my clothes was a must if I was going to survive in this world. I certainly could not walk around in yesterday’s clothing: that’s just plain disgusting.

Now, the whole washing the clothes thing is not all that bad. In fact, I rather have clean clothes than dirty, and I happen to like the smell of clean linen.

At my house, the only thing my parents yell at me about is wasting so much water just to do my laundry, but here at Southern, the only thing I have to worry about is how much money I have to spend washing and drying all of my clothes.

When I started at Southern, it was $1 to wash and $.50 to dry. For one load of laundry, it was costing me $1.50, but because I went home plenty of times during the course of the year, I did not have worry about spending the money.

By the time my second year started, the cost of drying went up a quarter. By that time, I was not going home as much and had no choice but to spend the money to wash and dry my clothes when I did not go home for the month.

When it came to using the washers and dryers on campus, the money did not go a long way.

Sure, the washers cleaned my clothes well, but the dryers did not do the trick. Half the time, my clothes were so wet I would have to spend another $.75 and wait another 45 minutes for them to be semi-dry.

Nevertheless, it did not make me feel any better when the cost of drying went up to $1. Great, now it was going to cost me $2 for every time I did laundry.

What is going on here?

To top that off, the increase of price in drying does not and I mean does not improve the drying process.

It is still 45 minutes to have your clothes somewhat dry. Oh, let me correct myself; most of the time, they are still wet. We are talking about the clothes still feeling the same consistency when they came out of the washer.

Over the past weekend, I did my laundry, and half my clothes were still dripping wet when they came out of the dryer.

My blanket for my bed – again, it was still wet. My sheets were dry, but the blanket was still wet.

While I was making my bed, I had to take my hair dryer to finish drying my blanket.

I was not going to spend another $1 to have it run through a white appliance with a door on it. I am a poor college kid.