The Routine

She walks to her favourite place in the whole campus. Her friends have even set up a nice little tent for her there. She casts a fond glance at it, at the happy pink sheets she draped the tent with the week before, but walks on purposefully towards her partner-in-crime. Reunions with 'The Hangout' can wait till after work.

The hulking, slightly old contraption gives a final heave before the monstrous noise dies down, and she hears the machine emanate the three beeps that signal the start of the next step in the process. That's the fun part - with the sun to give her company, a cool breeze ruffling her hair, and the other residents of the block to provide her with some inanely immature gimmicks for entertainment. But, she is getting ahead of herself.

Getting the contents out is up next, and with Schnappi not in the prime of life anymore, rotating just when he has to stay still, it certainly is the trickiest bit. With much cajoling and more than a little scolding, she manages to get them all out. 'It is an art' she concludes, standing tall and looking down at the filled bucket. 'An art that only I have been able to conquer!' She looks out at her friends, chatting and laughing, all the while beneath empty clothes lines. She throws her famed disdainful look at the unfortunate, washing-machine illiterates, and pats Schnappi on the lid. 'Good work', she says, to an apparently empty bathroom. But she takes it that Schnappi understands, for he is the only one whose existence she acknowledges. Him, and of late, another rather unfortunate soul, known to the others only as 'The Other Nair'.

She carries the bucket full of slightly soggy clothes (yet another by-product of poor Schnappi's twilight years), and stands in front of her clothes line, ready to do battle. The sun is streaming onto her face, she has all her cloth clips on the ready and the clothes line is already beginning to sag under the weight of her condescending stare. Ah, the simple joys of life.