Illustration by Arnie Bermudez

Laundry. It's the most hated chore for a college student. No matter how many or few clothes an individual has, every college student does laundry at least once a year.

Laundry is a tedious task that inevitably leads to an encounter with another aggressive laundry-doer. There is always that one another person that makes it a fact to act like a grande enema when in the laundry room.

The laundry room is a transformer. Normal, nice, everyday people revolve 180 degrees to become your worst enemy. Who someone is in the laundry room is not that person in the real world. Doing laundry is not that serious, and the fact that people make it seem so is appalling.

Moe Naqvi Columnist

The other day one of my wingmates and I participated in some dirty laundry action. He accidentally left his clothes in the dryer for five minutes after time had expired. Running back to check on his scrubs, he was met with a dirty floor decorated with his Nike tees and collection of mustard yellow pants. In retaliation, he opened back up the same dryer and threw in a prize of five complimentary slices of cheese.

I laughed, but I assure you the person with the cheesy clothes did not. The college laundry room is a war zone, and if only President Bush knew about this, he would definitely try liberating it from the evil-dryers.

The fact that the other guy took out my friends' clothes wasn't the awful part - it was the fact that he junked it on the soiled floor. Only God knows what sorts of diseases are on those floors; my hand touched a laundry floor once and four moles popped up.

If the other guy had simply been civilized and thrown my friend's clothes on to the nearby table, everything would have been dandy.

But no, the monkey made it a point to go back into the third grade and act jerkish.

Since when did doing the laundry become "Operation: Protect My Sweet Clothing?" There are too many impatient and intolerant individuals who show a complete disregard of other people's feelings and property.

Some punks steal people's clothes while others just throw it around the laundry room. Either instance is a horrible occurrence.

I had a personalized jersey stolen from one of my dryers. Now some person out there is wearing my name and using it to be cool.

That is not awesome.

Doing the laundry has been malformed from a simple, smooth errand to a task that takes up miles of energy and bullying. Being nice in the laundry room will get a person nowhere.

If an individual wants to wash and dry their clothes in the same day, the best bet is to bring a baseball bat into the room and wear an eye patch. Too often do individuals compete over a machine, which usually ends with the feistier of the two taking over the laundry kingdom.

The niceness stops once a person steps foot into the infamous laundry room. No one ever offers for another person to go ahead of them. And there is no such rule as "calling dibs" on a certain machine after someone else is done. If you aren't there waiting bat in hand, you might as well go home.

I am calling for all individuals to take a chill pill (that does not mean ecstasy) before heading on down to the local laundromat because there really is no need to throw oneself into a whirl of anger and irritation over washing clothes.

Sure, everyone wants to get their chores done fast, and I want Jessica Simpson to wash my car in a bikini. The point is that we can't always have what we want. Life is too short to be a jerk. As my friend Van Wilder once said, "Don't take life too seriously. You'll never get out alive."

The next time you are at the Laundromat and see three other individuals running to a machine, take a step back and remember your friends Moe and Van told you it's not that serious.

Moe Naqvi is a physiological sciences freshman. He can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.