Saturday is a special day...

They say Saturday is a special day, the day you get ready for Sunday, which is all well and good until your washer breaks, thus ruining your Sabbath preparations. Yes, that's right, our washing machine broke DURING a rinse cycle, so our washer was full of water and wet clothes with no way to drain it. We had 5 more loads to do, it's Saturday night, and we're totally exhausted from ICLCS, youth conference, being in the lab all night, etc. To top it all off, we had no clean clothes for Sunday. Here's the play by play of our adventure:

10:00 PM. We pack all the laundry in the car (including the sopping wet ones!) and drive all over Champaign-Urbana looking for a laundromat that was actually open. We find several (thanks, Jenna and Rob for the tip!), but they wouldn't let us start laundry that late

11:15 PM. We end up in campustown, on Green Street, searching for "Skylight Launderette." No really, that's what it's called. (FYI, Green St. is pretty much the center of all undergrad partying. You could literally smell the ethanol in the air, and the attire of those around us left much to be desired - particularly the women's)

11:16 PM. Becca suggests we name our daughter "Launderette."

11:17 PM. Bad idea. Side note - Don't read too much into this - there is no imminent "biological" reason for this conversation.

11:20 PM. Sadly, Skylight Launderette has been renamed "Skylight Laundry." How boring. The hours of Skylight Laundry are posted as 8 AM to midnight. We ask the attendant if we can do laundry. She replies, "No! Can't you see I'm mopping?" How rude.

11:30 PM. We haven't had dinner, so we drive around looking for a place to get quarters and food. We go to County Market to get a roll of quarters but they don't have one to give us. Becca buys a box of eclairs for the Father's Day smorgasbord to be held during Priesthood. We get a $10 bill to use for laundry on Sunday morning (church isn't until 1 PM).

12:00 AM. Before getting back in the car, I realize that our wet laundry is beginning to drip all over the car. So I stand in the street outside County Market, wringing out a basket of wet laundry!! We felt like bums who live out of our car! And of course we didn't have the camera with us.

12:15 AM. We go to the IHOP on Green Street. While in the IHOP, 4 police cars show up outside IHOP and officers begin questioning people in 3 different vehicles. And of course we have a front row view from our booth. The IHOP employees are all standing outside watching the whole thing go down. But they aren't that impressed. They say it's a pretty tame night by their standards.

1:00 AM. We finish dinner and pay with our IHOP gift card (thanks Mom and Dad Adams!). The manager brings us the receipt and we head home.

1:03 AM. We return to the IHOP hoping they can give us a roll of quarters. The manager asks if I had just eaten dinner there (I'm thinking, "Did you honestly forget me - ME OF ALL PEOPLE, A 6'3" ALBINO - in the 3 minutes since we left your restaurant?"). He gives me the quarters.

1:04 AM. Lots of yelling by undergrads from the balconies of the high rise apartment across the street from IHOP. I think they were surprised to see a 6'3" albino. Call me crazy, but alcohol and balconies don't seem like a good combination.

1:05 AM. We get in the car to head home. There are still 2 cop cars with lights flashing in the IHOP parking lot.

1:30 AM. Snuggle into bed, exhausted as usual.

7:30 AM. Alarm goes off.

7:38 AM. Snooze.

7:46 AM. Snooze.

7:54 AM. Get up and dress in our last remaining clean outfits. Head to the laundromat. (Judge us! But don't be too harsh - Becca wore a skirt, and I wore a BYU shirt)

8:20 AM. Laundromat is now open, and we load the clothes in 3 double capacity washers. We decide that when we have our big house, we need 3 washers and 3 dryers.

8:30 AM. Becca overhears the following.

Man #1: Don't look too excited about being here.
Man #2: I hate doing laundry.
Man #1: I tried to get married so I didn't have to do this anymore.
                  Then I decided it wasn't worth the trouble.
Man #2: (laughs)

This conversation was, needless to say, highly offensive.

8:35 AM. Man #1 might actually be a bum who lives out of his car. Either that or his wife was being too much trouble. I overhear him talking on the phone about how he slept in his truck, and it was too humid to sleep.

9:30 AM. Laundry is finished. I am moving the laundry to the car, per Becca's instruction. Man #1 looks at me and says, "Boy, she's got you trained, doesn't she?" I laugh. Heartily.

9:35 AM. I realize that what I SHOULD have said to Man #1 was, "Yeah, but she makes it worth my while." ☺

10:10 AM. Back at home, laundry all over the living room. Time to get ready for Church. Thankfully, my presidency meeting was canceled for Father's Day. Honestly, I'm not feeling as bad as I thought I might about being a Sabbath-breaker.

11:00 PM. Blog the whole experience. Laugh out loud with Becca all over again. Wish we had had a camera at the laundromat to surreptitiously take a picture of Man #1. I love that our marriage is full of these little moments of laughter!