I find myself doing a lot of hand washing lately (as in “Woolite”, not OCD). Most fine washables advise against wringing; I guess it makes the baby Jesus cry. But just squeezing your clothes as hard as you can makes your hands hurt and doesn’t expel much water. What’s needed, I thought, was some small hand-cranked device for spinning clothes, sorta like a salad spinner.
How about exactly like a salad spinner?
So the experiment begins. I ran down to the store and bought one, came back and washed a few items in the sink. Included were two pairs of socks. I squeezed each matched pair out, then put one from each pair into the spinner and cranked that baby up. After a minute or so I opened it up, tossed them about a bit for better coverage (so to speak), and spun 'em again. The difference was remarkable. I probably poured out a half cup of water, out of two socks. And one was a rather thin synthetic (the other was white cotton gym). For good measure I gave the unspun socks an extra squeeze, then hung all four on the same rack out on the patio. Now we’ll see if there’s a significant difference in drying times.
This all seams rather benign, doesn’t it? Take a gander over there:
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That’s right, folks, this is how I amuse myself at 8 o’clock on a Saturday night.
By the way, the rayon Hawaiian shirt came out almost ready to wear. Don’t ask me where, though.
Actually, that’s pretty clever. We actually have a salad spinner, but haven’t used it in years. Of course, we do have a clothesline…
OTOH, what kind of socks were these, exactly? “Fine Washables”? I don’t get it. Socks made out of spider silk? What?
I guess what we really need here is a description of the circumstances that led you to “find [yourself] doing a lot of hand washing lately”. We usually just hang our “fine washables” up to dry…do you need them in a hurry or something?
That said, if you do, that’s a pretty cool idea. Now if I can just sell Dr. LindyHopper on the idea…
Well, if it’s pathetic that you discovered this on a Saturday night, I’d hate to think what label one would put on the fact that I’m sitting here on a Saturday night reading about it and thinking it’s pretty cool…
We’ve got a great OXO salad spinner, gets much too little use. UNTIL NOW…
Well, “fine washables” is what Woolite calls 'em. It’s usually socks (esp. wool in winter), maybe a particular shirt for a special occasion, and I’ve got a couple pair of those REI MTS boxer briefs (jeez, TLAs for my underwear, am I a geek or what?) that are nice for biking. This being humid Central Texas, nothing dries very fast hanging up.
Looks like results will be inconclusive, as I refuse to stay up all night checking the test subjects every hour, and they’ll probably all be dry by morning (but maybe not!!).
And LindyHopper, this is just gadgety enough to appeal to guys. I remember some pals on a camping trip turning an extra cooler into a dishwasher.
Yeah; I forget that living in Western Montana as I do, it’s dry enough that no liquid stays around very long (especially beer [rim shot]). Anyhoo, it could be worse: as Dave Barry says of South Florida, “We can, without trying, grow crops in our laundry”.
What a great idea. You should change the design of the Salad Spinner slightly, apply for a patent, and then sell the suckers in infomercials. That would give you something else to do on a Saturday Night!
As an aside, when I belonged to the YMCA, the lady’s locker room had what I called a salad spinner for spinning excess water out of your swimsuits. It was really more like an ultra mini washing machine with the only setting being Spin.
