Burn it or Wash it? – The Laundry Question

I am a regular Neopian; absolutely nothing special here. I have four wonderful neopets who want for nothing. A Uni, a Korbat, a Yurble and my lovely and ever changing Lab Rat (currently a Skeith and not a rat at all). I own a small but comfy neohome (although there is no room to move in it for laundry), a shop, a gallery and a bank account. All pretty standard, however I also have what feels like the worlds largest pile of laundry – and it is steadily growing! I was stunned that this amount of laundry could have been generated by my pets. Then I took a step back and thought. When have I ever done the laundry? The terrifying answer – NEVER! I was truly shocked! Not once in four years – how extraordinarily embarrassing. I seem to spend all my time running the shop, feeding my pets, hunting for avatars and... um... playing games. It must be a conspiracy (surely not laziness on my part). It’s always a conspiracy!

“Where did it all come from?” I ask myself. “I’m not sure,” I reply. Then I think back to all the recent shopping trips, the desperate pleas for better weaponry and armour for the ‘dome. Halloween wasn’t so long ago and all four pets wanted some ‘cool new outfits’. Not to mention Christmas clothes in the Month of Giving, and who can forget the amazing Pirate themed New Years party we held?

With Uni’s Clothing from Neopia Central and Prigpants & Swolthy the Tailors in Neovia leading the way, a host of clothing has arrived which someone (i.e. me!) has to deal with. I am currently looking at an incredibly smelly pile which consists of trousers, T-shirts, invisibility cloaks, beach towels, smelly socks (the medicinal kind), battle robes, blankets from the desert, old Halloween costumes and even giant furry hands. These hands were left over from the recent Altador Cup - I haven’t actually been hacking of my poor pet’s hands. Now the armour isn’t a problem, just take some polish and a cloth and you are done... It’s the rest of this stuff that is beginning to turn my stomach - I dread to think of what is at the bottom of the pile.

I feel certain that back in the ‘good old days’, Neopets didn’t have the pressure to wear clothes; I personally blame the Beauty Contest. I’m sure that a lack of laundry facilities wasn’t an issue way back at the beginning of my time in Neopia. A Bruce’s bow tie would take months before it needed replacing due to dirt, and it’s not the largest item so a landfill wasn’t really an issue. Tyrannians would simply wear furs or leather until they fell off. They were biodegradable anyway so it wasn’t a problem. The Faeries apparently just zap their clothes clean. No need to do anything so manual as to actually wash them by hand, oh no, not for our faeries. On the Virtupets Space Station they simply jettison the dirty laundry into the farthest reaches of deep space ( I’m sure the Space Faerie will have something to say about that in the near future) and on Kreludor the Grundos simply atomise their dirty ‘stuff’ on a daily basis.

However, recently the Neopian economy has taken off in a big way. In every new world on Neopia, from the Haunted Woods, to Altador and Shenkuu, you can buy ever more clothing. There are now more than 15 shops which sell a wide variety of clothing for your pets' fashion needs and a brand new game to encourage a fashion frenzy in even the quietest of pets.

I have since searched high and low throughout Neopia to find some automated way to clean our clothes, a Virtupets creation or an alien artefact of some kind. Maybe a store which sells soap for clothes or offers to clean them for you even. In my desperation I looked for a stream with handy rocks... nothing! I have found several types of regular soap, which could be used, but nothing to wash the clothing in. There is no real laundry service or robot anywhere, not Neopia Central, not Darigan Citadel. Although laundry probably isn’t an issue there. If it was left to me, I’d just shove it off the edge and let Meridell deal with it! (Okay – maybe I do have a laziness issue.) There is nothing – not even on the Moon.

Depressingly the only washing related item I found was a Wooden Washboard, intended for musical purposes, not laundry. It truly seems that nowhere in Neopia is geared up to handle laundry.

Have the Meepits been ‘at it’ again?

Is Dr Sloth preparing for an invasion, waiting for the moment that unsuspecting Neopians are swallowed whole by their laundry pile?

Why haven’t I seen more mounds of dirty laundry in the streets?

Have the ‘other’ Neopians been keeping secrets from me?

Why am I not overwhelmed by the stench of foul laundry in the summer months?

Oh hold on a mo’. There is somewhere... the Neolodges all offer a laundry service. Every single one of them, from the Cockroach Towers and Fleapit motel all the way up to the Presidential Palace and the AstroVilla. How did I miss that? Darn it – there is no conspiracy, oh no... I really am just lazy. How depressing.

Now how to get this pile of laundry over to the neolodge? Will they accept it all in one hit, or should I book my pets in for a while and just mail their dirty laundry over to them?

Either way this will be a long job so I need to stop writing now and start shovelling laundry.