Modern Appliances

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Modern Appliances

July 29, 2007 by lamarguerite

There is some advantage to not having access to the comfort of modern appliances. In our Paris appartment, I still have not figured out how to use the wash machine. The dryer appears to be even more of a mystery. One unforeseen consequence has been how little dirty laundry we have generated as a result. Back home, I cannot even count the number of loads we go through in a week. There, the temptation is just too great, knowing that doing laundry is as simple as: 1) drop some detergent, 2) dump the dirty clothes, 3) press the start button.

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Posted in American Culture, French Culture | Tagged appliances, dryer, eco-sins, ecopsychology, French culture, human behavior, wash machine | 4 Comments

4 Responses

on July 31, 2007 at 1:57 am | Reply cass

This is the Rosetta Stone of American culture–if you are not so busy that you don’t have time to do things that require attention, then you are not successful. Successful MEANS not having time–whether because you’re having too much fun, too much leisure, or you’re too much in demand, having no time is a sign of success and success drives the U.S.

To your point about a difficult washing machine: first we sold the image that fast equals success and success equals…well, success. That’s ingrained in our thinking. Then we come in with the knock-out punch: here are all these amazing machines for people who…coincidentally!…don’t have time!

Kudos to the land of slow food and washing machines.
on August 2, 2007 at 3:08 pm | Reply Day 160: MLwC and when making things easy makes things worse « What it’s like

[...] over at Confessions of a Green Girl Wannabe Marguerite, who is in Paris right now, notes that: There is some advantage to not having access to [...]
on August 5, 2007 at 8:13 pm | Reply lamarguerite

Isn’t that interesting how all these musings about green, are taking both you and I down to some of the fundamental values of American, and also Western culture . . .
on August 7, 2007 at 9:30 pm | Reply A Million Paths

When I lived in France (Bordeaux) we had a (tiny) washer but no dryer, but we did have a semi-enclosed balcony. This meant, that everything you washed took 24-hours to dry. In the US with a washer/dryer at our ready disposal, we can do things like wash just an outfit, or a handful of clothes, so we can wear a cherished shirt or whatever. In France, I learned not to toss the favorite shirt or jeans in the wash unless it was absolutely dirty. One could dry their clothes at the laundr-o-mat but it was ridiculously pricey, and lugging wet clothes down the street is never fun.