it's laundry day

i have a headache. you know, the kind that makes your head feel like it's a balloon filled with way to much air and about to pop, when there's so much pressure you're sure submarines would implode if they were inside your brain, yeah one of those. and every step i take makes my head pulse and throb. every step. yet, the only thing i can think of is:

laundry in the kitchen... the idea itself grosses me out. the thought of piles of dirty clothes in the place food is made makes me actually think about watching what i eat. almost.

why the sudden interest in kitchen laundry??

well, it all started on our trip to madinah a few weeks ago. we (my aunt, her huband, her children, my uncle, and my family) all stayed in this furnished apartment. it was right next to the mosque and really big so it was a hotspot for religious tourists. obviously. this meant that while clean and stuff, it had that dirty motel - not to be confused with the nice motels - feel about it. you know, the one that makes you cringe to step barefoot on the carpet or slide in under the sheets even though you know they were both cleaned right before you stepped into the place. anyways, the big washing machine was thrown in the kitchen, across from the big trash can. i thought that was odd, but the place was designed to fit as many people as possible inside - there were two twin beds in the living room - so i let it slide.

then, we went to taif. we stayed in another furnished apartment, but this one was much much nicer, though it was smaller. where at the madinah place we had beds to spare, at the taif place the non-parents mostly slept on the floor. the place was nice, nothing cringe-worthy about it. there was just one thing that threw me. there, front and center in the kitchen, where you might find a dishwasher in some other house, was a washing machine. built in and everything. yes, they planned to put a washing machine in the middle of a kitchen.

the washing machine in Taif... in the kitchen

okay, i thought, maybe they were pressed for space too. i mean, they do have to fit everything in to a specific amount of space in these furnished places. i guess they did the best they could. right??

so i tried my best to ignore it. again. that's when i started watching tv with my brothers in the living room. they were watching some arab cartoon that i had never seen before and even forgot what it was called. the characters had really long arms and the girl had a very screechy voice. but i digress. my point is that, in that cartoon, the mom started to do the laundry. and guess where she did it?? yup, the kitchen. she loaded the clothes in the machine that was in the kitchen, added the soap, and we were left to watch the swirling colors for a few seconds. then today, i was watching a completely different cartoon, and guess what i saw?? a washing machine in the kitchen again. i realize that these are cartoons, but they have to be based on something right??

so now i'm thinking, maybe kitchen washing machines are really normal. maybe i'm the weird one for thinking otherwise. what do you think??

*Geek in the Pink - Jason Mraz