Bad Laundry Karma

An open letter to a washer woman from a past life:

Dear Washer Woman,

I am sorry that I cannot address you by name, because I never bothered to learn it. In my eyes, you were simply cheap labor and there was no need to learn your name or even treat you as a human being.

That the laundry was done and the clothes or linens I needed were always available was a given in my pampered life. Such manual tasks were so far beneath me that it never would have occurred to me to question how it got done or who washed my dirty shorts. You were invisible to me; that is, unless the work was not completed, in which case the full force of my wrath came down upon your tired shoulders.

Please accept my sincerest of apologies for not recognizing my poor treatment of you while we were both alive those many years ago. My only hope is that your current reincarnation may stumble across this letter and realize that I am trying to make amends for past errors in a past life.

How did I come to realize, in this lifetime, that I abused and neglected you in a former one? Well, it was a slow process. Because having someone else wash my clothes would not even occur to me now, I purchased a machine to do the task for me. Over time, I became dissatisfied with how it did the job. (You were far more skilled, and quieter, too.) I recently sold this machine as I had another person's machine at my disposal.

Only a few loads of laundry later, though, this other person's machine rebelled. It squealed when spinning the clothes and smelled of burning rubber. Fearing a fire, I ceased using it. (Unlike my treatment of you, I was unwilling to continue abusing the machine.) This left me with the choice of hand-washing everything, as you used to do for me, or paying to use public machines. Because my body is not used to the physical labor of hand-washing heavy clothes, I opted to pay to machine-wash some items despite the financial cost.

We are moving our household soon and my time is consumed with packing, as well as meeting another outside commitment. I decided to save all of my soiled clothing and linens for a trip to the public machines just a mile away. Forces were already starting to gather in response to my bad karma with you, though.

Our ruling government informed me that I needed to pay my annual tribute to continue operating my motor vehicle, the common mode of transportation in these times. Before doing so, however, they wanted confirmation that it would not spew nasty waste products along behind it, much like the droppings left by horses in the streets of yore. My conveyance needed repairs first and is currently in the hands of skilled mechanics, who will insist on appropriate compensation upon completion of the job. (I cannot ignore their requests for enough to buy food for their children, as I could yours. They are not indebted to me.)

With the short distance involved, my laundry could be transported by bicycle in the meantime. Or so I thought. As I loaded up my workhorse of a bike this morning, a mechanical problem surfaced making it unreliable. My dirty laundry tumbled out of the bags onto my feet, and I was forced to wash much of it by hand.

This still does not explain how I came to know of our past relationship. After all these little signs, I suspected there might be larger forces at work than simply bad luck or bad timing. I sought out and consulted a Laundry Psychic. She helped me recognize that my dirty laundry went much further back than just this week, and together we teased out the past life transgression that has resulted in my current laundry woes.

Again, Washer Woman, please accept my deepest apologies for not valuing your work or respecting you as a fellow human being.

Peace be with you in this life and the next,

Chile