laundry room etiquette

I was in the middle of my bimonthly laundry ritual yesterday afternoon when I found myself with two loads of wet laundry but only one available dryer. The other dryer was full of someone's clean, dry (and unclaimed) clothes. In an effort to stay on schedule in order to complete my five loads, I decided to politely remove the said items of clothing (Z.Cavaricci jeans and black socks), place them on top of a clean tabletop located in the laundry room, and use the dryer for my second load. It did feel a bit gross touching someone else's socks, but in the interest of efficiency, I decided this was the best course of action.

Evidently, the owner of the Cavariccis did not agree. When I came back to the laundry room an hour later to check on my two loads, I found the Cavariccis gone and my load still as damp as if they had just finished the wash cycle. The jerk had actually opened the door of the dryer which we had both been using, therefore preventing my dryer load from finishing and wasting the $1.00 that I had put in the machine.

This was a spiteful act of vengeance, which of course incited feelings of vengeance in me, having already been in a pissy mood all weekend. I considered posting a variety of pleasantries:

"TO THE *!>&%$ WHO STOPPED MY DRYING CYCLE, I KNOW WHAT YOUR Z.CAVARICCIS LOOK LIKE AND THEY WILL NEVER BE SAFE IN THIS LAUNDRY ROOM AGAIN!"

or

"YOU OWE ME $1.00. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE. WATCH OUT."

I finally decided not to be a baby and ignore this kind of juvenile tit-for-tat behavior. But anyone who's every done laundry in a dorm or apartment knows about laundry etiquette 101:

"Clean, wet clothes that have been left in a washer for more than 15 minutes may be moved to a DRYER.

The TABLES are reserved for clean, dry clothes that have been left in a dryer for more than fifteen minutes."

The Wash Post, student papers of Yale and the U. Virginia, and several blogs across the nation will concur with me. Regardless, you can bet I'll be checking out the brand name of every pair of jeans that I pass in the hallway.