Always.

Clothes dryers are rare in Italy. When I ask people on the street why they don’t have these wonderful machines I get a variety of answers.  By far the most frequent are variations on these four:

1. They don’t have enough space in their apartment.
2. It is a serious energy expense. No thank you.
3. What is a dryer?
4. Get away from me you creep.

To make matters worse, their washing machines are tiny. So tiny they can often be pushed into a corner in the kitchen or underneath a sink in the bathroom. Thus far, the biggest load of laundry I have been able to complete is roughly three shirts, a pair of shorts and four ankle socks.

The consequence of the no dryers and small washing machines means inevitably one thing: the Italians are always doing laundry, always. Pegged to every balcony and underneath any available open window, lines of laundry dangle flapping in the breeze, working like bacon to go from soggy and limp to dry and crispy. Trying to air dry and get off the line quickly before some calamity like a flash storm or pigeon befowls them, or to make way for another ‘load’ fresh from the wash.

It’s not an easy process, this laundering. The shortest cycle on the washing machine in my apartment lasts an hour and a half. Actually, that may be a lie. To be honest I haven’t figured out what all of the symbols on the washing machine actually mean. I haven’t tried them all. This I have labeled the Symbol Problem. This happens all over Genoa, and probably extends throughout Italy, and way past my washer. Using appliances in general here is mostly guesswork. My hour and a half cycle is identified by what looks like a cotton sprig. Sprig? Is that right? Doesn’t sound right. Bulb? The symbol is like a bulb of cotton outlined in a lovely aquamarine color. Thus far cotton seems the safest symbol. The other cycle symbols feature a cartoonish looking chemist’s beaker, half-filled, and a feather. If I had to take a guess I would say the beaker is for synthetics and the feather is well, primarily reserved for things filled with feathers, but that’s about as right as saying, ‘a sprig of cotton’. Surely the feather means delicate? Surely pillows don’t warrant one of three cycles on the dial and there ain’t no way a down comforter is jamming into that thing.

It’s too bad too, about the comforter. That washer would clean the shit out of a comforter. Sanitize like a dip in boiling bleach. Why? Because you can control the exact temperature of the water going through that sucker. 90 degrees centigrade is the highest option on my geriatric machine. That’s 194 degrees! Don’t want 90? Knock it down to 85, or 73 or 48. It’s funny how the Italians want an exact temperature on a separate temperature dial, but can live with cryptic symbols for the rest. Stranger still when you learn that everyone in Italy, from the little hunched nonna to the style-savvy teen always uses the 90 degree option. The nuclear option. Boil their clothes if they could. One small load at a time.

Then hang them out again on the line, wear, rinse, repeat.