Baja Review A community newspaper serving Ensenada, Valle de Guadalupe, and Rosarito in Northern Baja California
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I have to admit, I just like the sound of it. Undies on the line. I mean, it’s true, they are there, on the clothesline, hanging in the breeze. But somehow the idea of it sounds much more glamorous, more adventurous, even exciting, than it actually is. Because they are just hanging there. That’s about it.
The reality of the situation is that I don’t really like air-dried clothing. I much prefer putting my clothes, along with a bounce sheet, in the dryer (it is its name, after all – the dryer), cooking them for a mere forty-five minutes, and leaving them infused with that natural spring freshness. None of this air-drying stuff—where’s the spring freshness in that?
But, the more that I consider it, why put clothes in a dryer that uses energy to run (and costs money), when, especially in Baja, there is plentiful, natural, already provided sunlight that will accomplish the same task while expending nothing?
Financially it makes sense—you get something for free instead of paying for it. Not a bad deal.
Environmentally it makes sense—you use an existing resource that is not depleted in the process, and you neglect to use a manufactured resource that is depleted in the process. When put that way, it seems so obvious, so simple, really.
The thing is, I like my undies to be soft, and line-dried undies are a bit crusty. I have heard that you can iron them to soften them back up. (I lived in Scotland for a year and there I had no dryer, so was forced to figure out the air dry thing—which I did only until I came upon a machine dryer and returned to my soft clothing bliss.) Not only does that not make sense given the rationale of not using a resource when one is freely available, but it also doesn’t make sense because I hate ironing. Sure, using a clothes dryer is not in the same category as many other worse for the environment actions such as a tanker’s oil spill in a wildlife refuge in Alaska, but it’s the principle of the matter.
So, I’m in a quandary. How can I justify basking in my soft cushion of comfort, knowing that I am personally responsible for contributing to our environmental woes?
There is an obvious solution; it is just that the one that makes so much logical sense leaves me feeling, well, a bit stiff.
