When my Panda arrived, I went on a cleaning spree

Marisa Carroll

I live in an apartment three blocks from the closest laundromat. It?s not the in-unit laundry setup of my dreams, but it gets the job done: I drop off, I pick up, I pay the kind clerk between $20 and $45, and I?m on my way. In New York, laundromats are considered essential businesses allowed to operate during the stay-at-home order. But I?ve also noticed more and more voluntarily closing to protect their employees from the virus. I?m comfortable washing my clothes in the tub, but have neither the indoor laundry space nor the Mamma Mia! line-drying setup to let my clothes dry for hours on end. I needed a solution.
And my husband, apparently, needed an internet rabbit hole to fall down. After a few hours reading online reviews and watching YouTube videos for portable spin-dryers, he landed on the Panda. The ?ultrafast portable spin-dryer? is the size of a garbage can, comes in white or stainless steel, fits one load of wet laundry, and plugs right into the wall. It?s essentially a giant salad spinner: It whirls your clothes around for five minutes and barfs the water out through a spigot. Ever dry your Speedo in one of those small dryers at the gym" That?s a Panda. At $150, it was expensive, but cheaper than a few months of wash-and-fold. When my Panda arrived, I went on a cleaning spree.

I filled my tub with water, a little bit of OxiClean, and an even littler bit...