See You in the Wet Wash!

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Chris calling from Vermont.

Hey, Chris, welcome.

What can we help you with?

Well, I’ve been listening to your show for a little while and I’d ask a question.

And it has to do with something, it was a phrase my grandmother used to say all the time when my brothers and I were growing up.

And she passed away a long time ago, so there’s no hope of finding out what this phrase is.

But anytime we went to her house and we’d leave, she would always say, I’ll see you in a wet wash.

To this day, my brothers and I will use the expression to each other, just kind of half-joking, but we really don’t know what it means or where it came from.

Oh, that’s cool.

So I was hoping you might be able to help.

And Chris, when she said it, did she say it in any particular way, like joking or menacing?

No, she was a pretty innocent and sweet, bold lady.

That’s how I remember her.

Okay.

So she didn’t seem to be a joking thing, more innocent, just, you know, wet wash.

Do you know what a wet wash is?

I don’t.

Okay.

They don’t really have them anymore.

There was a time about 100 years ago, early 1900s, where you could send all your laundry out to be washed, and they would put it in a centrifuge or press out all the water, and they would give it back to you wet and not actually dry and folded.

And that was a wet wash because it took some of the worst parts of washing laundry out of the house.

And sometimes they would do this big thing where you’d put all of your family’s laundry in one net bag, and it was all washed together and sent back to you that way.

And it must have seemed like such a luxury, such an innovation, you know, sort of like washers and dryers in the 1950s or polyester coming along, you know, where women didn’t have to do so many household chores.

It must have been.

Sure, yeah.

So it took.

Interesting.

Because if you remember the ringers and all the stuff that you would have had to do without that kind of wash.

And this was before big industrial dryers were a thing.

And then you would just take the laundry out and you’d hang it up around the house, you know, in your lines or in the courtyard or alley or what have you.

Okay.

But the question is what she meant by see you in a wet wash.

Did she literally mean see you in the actual machinery or did she mean to see you down at the place where the washing was done?

Because there was a point at which this was a luxury item and it was if you were well-to-do, you did send your, you had your maid perhaps send the laundry out for a wet wash.

Oh, I was thinking it might be in the sack of wet wash itself, you know, that she’ll be carried back along with the wet clothes or something.

You know, I’m coming back just like your wet wash comes back.

I don’t know.

Yeah, I don’t know.

See you in the wet wash.

Yeah.

I’ve done a little bit of noodling around here.

I don’t see you in a wet wash as any kind of catchphrase at any point in American history.

If it was, it does not appear in any kind of digital search that I can do.

But if you want to see pictures of a wet wash, there’s a great site called oldandinteresting.com.

And if you go to that, it’s got photos of the Omaha wet wash laundry and some other cool stuff.

Oh, fantastic.

I’ll have to do that.

I’ll share this with my brothers.

We’ll be interested to know, too.

Yeah.

Well, Chris, thanks for sharing memories of your grandmother with us.

Not a problem.

It was a pleasure.

Thanks, Chris.

Bye-bye.

Thank you for helping me out.

Sure.

See you in the wet wash.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

All right.

Bye-bye.

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