Laundry Alert! No More No-Spin Zones

Doing laundry in the dorms sucks. For those of you who might be too far removed from the experience (or the spoiled among you who send your laundry out), let me paint you a picture. Imagine me dragging my hamper to the laundry room, only to discover that one of the dryers won't turn on, another one doesn't have heat, and all four washers are full. Now, picture me dragging my laundry across Hill only to find myself in the same situation. If you really close your eyes and imagine, you can probably hear me saying "Fuck this, I'm taking a nap." Lather, rinse, repeat every two weeks for three months.

But even though Facilities still hasn't fixed all of the dryers (probably still working on the high rises' toilet situation), Penn Housing Services has at least answered some of our prayers. No longer will I have to wander throughout Hill like an Israelite, because I have seen the future: LaundryAlert.com.

"An Internet laundry machine monitoring system," LaundryAlert monitors all of the laundry rooms on campus and lets you know how many machines are available or being used. More than that, the website tells you how long you have to wait for that washer to free up so you can relentlessly throw some poor sap's clothes on top of the dirty machine. And it will even send you an e-mail when that time finally arrives. (You need a password to use the site--search your email archives, Penn Housing already sent one out.)

Yes, it's true, the website is ugly as sin (seriously, Helen Keller could have done a better job with this thing). And I'd much prefer a notification text over an e-mail, but the fact that I will no longer have to make 30 trips to the laundry room every day is enough for me to welcome LaundryAlert into my heart.