Do you take your underwear rare or well-done?

I am ever vigilant in my efforts to save money here in the Big Apple. While really good deals are few and far between (I miss the $5 Little Caesar's pizza), I refuse to give up the search.

My quest landed me in our building's laundry room this week, where a helpful woman explained to me that the middle dryer was the hottest of the bunch. At the time, I thought I had met another deal-finder who was sharing a way to save a couple of quarters. Hotter = Less Drying Time, right? Now, I believe she was warning me.

I burnt our clothes.

They weren't blackened or scorched, but boy howdy!, did they have a strange odor. Let's see-- a fitting analogy...Have you ever held the iron on a shirt just a couple seconds too long? How about a curling iron that was a little too hot? It smells something like that. When the drying cycle was finished, I reached in to get the clothes and couldn't touch them because they were too hot. So I parked the laundry basked under the dryer and with a few "oh, ow's"and minimal contact, I swept them into the basket. I had to let them cool for a good half hour before I could comfortably fold them. Lesson learned. Fresh, un-cooked clothing is worth more than 25 cents.