Washing machines have their own time zone

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

The advice…

Never, ever rely on the countdown displayed on a washing machine. These appliances have their own time zone where two minutes can mean up to 10 minutes in human-time.

Where it’s coming from…

We all have a friend who is always late. The sort of friend who is always ‘on the way’…. Where ‘on the way’ means ‘on-the-way-to-get-showered-before-I-leave’. These are the friends with no concept of time. They forget to calculate commute time.

Well, washing machines are the appliance equivalent of these friends. Other appliances are pretty fair: the oven, the microwave - they stick to the time. But washing machines - no!

It has often happened to me that I plan a load before I need to run out for an errand. It never works. Because I stand in front of the machine, five minutes before I need to dash out, watching it spin. The display shows that there are two minutes left till the end of the cycle - and 10 minutes pass.

Sometimes, when I don’t have those 10 minutes and have to rush out, it means I come back home one or two hours later to clothes that smell of damp and have to be re-washed.

So, never, ever trust a washing machine with time.