Sorting by size 
On laundry and nationality

Katrín Níelsdóttir, Winnipeg, MB

When I moved to Iceland, I didn’t realize I’d be re-educated by laundry. I thought I was moving for the family, the adventure, because I couldn’t think of a reason why not – but the truth is, I enrolled in a long, slow course titled: “How to Wash Your Clothes in the North Atlantic.”

I knew no Icelandic when I arrived in Reykjavík. We lived with my sister-in-law, and the washer was about the size of a salad bowl. It held maybe three pairs of pants – four if you believed in miracles. The settings were all in Icelandic, of course, and laundry vocabulary wasn’t covered in my crash course of “smile, nod, and guess.” 

There was no dryer. Instead, laundry lines were strung across the basement ceiling, giving the place the feel of a haunted house full of wet socks.

Later, when we got our own apartment in the city, things improved – slightly. There was a dryer! In German. It beeped mysteriously and required its own water reservoir to be emptied like some kind of needy houseguest. I did my best, but the clothes always came out slightly damp and smelling faintly of confusion. So I dried the kids’ clothing on radiators and kitchen chairs. Our home looked like a laundromat run by trolls.

We moved to Þórshöfn in Northeast Iceland – back to no dryer, but now we had an outdoor line. Lovely. Until the wind came. Icelandic wind doesn’t just blow – it hunts. I lost track of how many times I had to sprint through a field after a pair of underpants. When it was too cold (which was most of the time), the radiators and chairs returned to their starring role.

Eventually, we ended up on an old NATO base. And that’s when I met my first American-style washer and dryer in years. Big. Loud. Effective. I was in love. 

But my Icelandic friends were scandalized. “They’ll ruin your clothes,” they whispered. “Too rough. Too hot. Too fast.” I didn’t care. I used them anyway, but with the guilty pleasure of someone eating chocolate alone in the pantry.

Later we moved to Keflavík. No dryer again – but I had a big backyard and a clothesline. I began to enjoy the ritual of watching the sky, racing the rain, and pegging socks with precision. I thought maybe, finally, I’d cracked the Icelandic laundry code.

And then one day, while volunteering at the Red Cross, I overheard a few of the older women chatting over coffee. They were talking laundry – of course. One of them said, “It just looks terrible when it’s all random like that. You should always hang clothes by size – smallest to largest.” I laughed. “Oh, I never sort by size.”

One of them turned to me and smiled: “We know. We can see your line from the Bónus parking lot.” I’ve never sorted laundry with more shame in my life.

Now I’m back in Canada. I have a massive washer that can finish a load in thirty minutes … but I don’t trust it. I put everything on the extra clean cycle, because three-hour European washers taught me that clothes can’t possibly be clean that fast. Sometimes I use the dryer. Sometimes I hang everything around the apartment like I’m still in Reykjavík. It just depends on what nationality I’m feeling that day.