Reason #3: Clotheslines

Everyone here has a clothesline. (Except our Candian-American friends in Auckland, but they aren't real Kiwis, I guess.)

One appliance saleswoman was sort of talking us out of getting a dryer. She mocked a neighborhood in which she had lived in Australia because they wouldn't allow clotheslines. "They said it made us look like the third world or something. Imagine."

Kiwis hang their clothes to dry. Not because they have to. Not because dryers are outrageously expensive (though they are.) Because they can. And why not? The air is clean, the sun is extra-bright, and no one thinks you're poor or trashy for having a clothesline. It saves a few dollars, yes, and is good for the enviornment, but mostly, it's practical.

I have a fabulous clothesline. It's hung above the edge of our deck, so I don't have to reach up, and there's lots of room for big items like sheets to hang clear of the ground.

Due to the lack of a vent for a dryer, we bought a washer-dryer combo. So we have a clothes dryer, but I'm using it less and less. Why not hang stuff out on a sunny day? It's picturesque, It will make our clothes last longer, and Michael will learn to live with itchy jeans.

It's the Kiwi way.