The afternoon was one of house cleaning and grading papers--end of semester routines.  You check your clock between one stack of essays and another and realize you have forgotten about your laundry.  How long ago had you stuffed your clothes into the dryer?  Surely they are done by now.  Your bones at least are ready for a break from sitting, so you gather your laundry basket and make your way down to the laundry room.

You hear the industrious whirring of the dryer before you see your brightly colored clothes spinning in the machine.  You'd miscalculated--there are five minutes left on the clock.  By the time you get back upstairs, it will be time to turn back around and gather your clothes, so you are left with only one option: yoga in the laundry room

You look around and realize you are alone, save for rows of washing and drying machines.  As the clock ticks down to four minutes until your clothes are in, you stretch your arms up high and swan dive down to touch your toes.  You lift your rib cage and inhale, then lengthen down on the exhale.  Three minutes left.  You reach your whole body up again into mountain pose, firmly rooting yourself into the ground with each toe stretching to feel the floor beneath you.

You raise your arms over your head again, hands together, and carefully tilt to one side, then the other, into half-moon pose, luxuriating in the stretch along your rib cage.  Two minutes to go.  You arch your back, lifting your spine almost out of yourself as you extend, lengthen.  One minute.  You release your grip and then take one last swap dive to the ground.  Lift and lengthen.  Exhale and release forward.  Ping.  Laundry done.

You load your clothes and make your way back to your apartment, refreshed, revived--and ready for that next stack of papers.