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Laundry is a funny thing... I like to do my own laundry--be master of my domain; know when I am going to do it, know when I am going to get my clothes back... it doesn't work that way here. You have to plan three days out when you want clean clothes, or might run out of clean clothes--not an easy task I tell you... It works like this: drop clothes off between 0700 and 1900 two days prior to when you want your clean clothes back. Fill out a slip of paper, choose the "bulk" option or you will spend hours counting out each individual item... and it won't make a difference because laundry isn't THAT different... the great disappearing sock mystery apparently applies here as well as at home... but with a twist!

I dropped of some laundry my first week here--still living in the tent mind you--two days later when I pick up the laundry and return to the tent I notice that two of my running socks are missing--not a pair mind you, but two different pairs of running socks were missing half the set!! I make my way back to the laundry facility the next day--it took me a day to notice this--I didn't unpack my laundry because I was (wrongly and hopelessly) optimistic about moving into a trailer soon. A few days later I get to the laundry place to drop off another load and go ask about my lost socks at the pick-up side of the facility. They are astounded that anything could possibly be lost. The manager takes the two half-pairs and says he will go down and look for the other socks later that day. The next day he hasn't found them, but he hasn't looked yet either. The next day the same thing, but my new bag of laundry is ready to pick up--again, hopelessly optimistic, I don't unpack for a couple of days. but when I do--presto!! My two half-pairs of socks are in the laundry bag! I make my way back to the laundry facility and ask for my other two socks back--the ones the manger was going to use as matches in the search... the lady at the counter looks at me with the biggest deer-in-the-headlights look you have ever seen--no idea what I am talking about. Eventually the manager is called and finds the socks and returns them to me. So, laundry in Iraq is not immune from lost socks, but they can mysteriously re-appear too!!

another note about the laundry--almost everything they wash is brown; so that even if what you turned in to wash wasn't brown, it will be when you get it back. I have, or rather had, a white towel. At first I thought the dust was really sticking to my skin and I wasn't scrubbing it all the way off, so that my towel was getting dirty after my shower. But, each time I sent it to the laundry it came back browner (more brown, if you will) than when I had dropped it off... Still, even though you KNOW the towel is clean, rubbing a now brown but once white towel across a clean body FEELS wrong... I think I may be purchasing a nice brown towel in the very near future.... (I am not posting a picture of the towel--to protect the innocent)