Eighth in a series from Europe…
[Paris] – On a European scale the apparatus of daily life – the kitchen gadgets, the automobiles and, yes, the household appliances – are about two-thirds the size of their American cousins. This smaller scale is completely understandable given the fact that, generally speaking, life is on a considerably smaller scale in Europe.
Paris, for example, is a city of 2.2 million people, but it is a genuinely walkable city. In many cases you can walk from one location to the next, even when they seem some distance removed, more quickly than than you can search for a Metro station or take a taxi. Part of the reason, I’m convinced, the Europeans haven’t had to confront the type of obesity problems with have in the U.S. is that they tend to walk a lot more. Of course, the scale of the place makes walking to work, to shop, to recreate not only possible, but often the best option.
Apartments and homes are on the same smaller scale, and certainly most living arrangements are on a much smaller smaller scale the United States. There are few American style McMansions here and those that do exist more often than not date to the 17th Century and house a museum. So, it naturally follows that the refrigerator, the dish washer, the oven and the washing machine are smaller, too. Ah, yes, the washing machine.
The New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik, who lived in Paris at one point, published a sweet little essay in 1996 where, among other things, he sought to explain the ways of French logic. “In Paris,” Gopnik wrote,” explanations come in a predictable sequence, no matter what is being explained. First comes the explanation in terms of the unique, romantic individual, then the explanation in terms of ideological absolutes, and then the explanation in terms of the futility of all explanation.”
Gopnik wrote in his essay about the issues one is likely to encounter when the dryer is on the fritz here, so with apologies to his earlier analysis, I offer my own analysis of the use of the French washing machine. Voila.
First thing to know: with this space-aged looking machine you get two for one, a washer and a dryer in the same little compact package. Imagine the harried French housewife. She must do the shopping, she cares for the children, perhaps she works outside the home. She is busy and a serial multi-tasker just like her U.S. counterpart. She is a unique, indeed romantic individual with her carefully styled hair, her perfect outfit – even at the vegetable market – and her assured sense of command. Such a unique and romantic woman and needs a washing machine and dryer to live up to her expectations.
The idea of a combination washing machine and dryer is, I think, a very French idea. I know you can get these contraptions everywhere anymore, but they dominate the household appliance landscape here. The apartment sizes dictate the combo model to be sure, but the two-machines-in-one idea also nicely passes the French test of working perfectly in theory, if somewhat less perfectly in reality. This is where Gopnik’s explanation of all things becoming an ideological absolute enters our story.
Of course, you may well think that the very different tasks of washing your clothes and drying your clothes might better be done by separate machines designed specifically for those tasks, but in ideological terms you would be wrong. If it can be imagined, it can be done. At least in theory.
Having not had the benefit of reading the operating manual for the machine that is housed snuggly in the bathroom of our Paris apartment, I only later discovered that it is recommended that as a prerequisite to flipping switches and tweaking toggles on the machine that the operator successful complete the final exam at the École Polytechnique. To say the controls are complex is to bring us finally to the futility of all French explanations.
Of course, the machine seems to be silently saying, this is a complex, confusing piece of technology. Can you imagine how much work went into designing, engineering and constructing a machine that gets your clothes wet, then clean, then dry and all without removing the clothes once you have pushed the correct button or toggled the right switch? Can you not see that further explanation is useless? Accept the machine for what it is and be happy it works perfectly in theory.
The spinning, the stopping, the whirling and wheezing at least provides assurance to the unskilled operator that enough of the correct switches were bumped to make the thing perform. And, you can go out and have lunch, linger over coffee and still get back in time to catch the last spin cycle. This is the Hundred Years War of washing machines and dryers. I now understand why there seems to be a laundry and dry cleaner on every other corner in Paris.
Readers of this space have probably concluded over the last couple of weeks that I am a partial to France – all of Europe, in fact. I love the history, the culture, the food, the people and the drama. There is a surprise around every corner, a sense of style and individuality, and there are laughs aplenty. I am, however, a committed believer in the American washing machine and the separate American dryer. Somethings were just made to be stand alone. The theory of my French machine is a great one and you can almost imagine it working. Almost.
Hold on, I think that noise signaled the final spin cycle.