Washing my laundry has never been an activity that requires much thought or emotion. My laundry basket fills up, I let it fill up a little more, I grumble some about carrying the heavy basket down the stairs and then I shove everything in the washing machine and eventually switch it to the dryer. An annoying task to complete every couple of weeks, but relatively painless.

Recently, however, I have been getting more and more frustrated, and thoughtful, about doing my laundry. Not because my clothes have gotten any more interesting or aggressive, but because of three little words that haunt me every time I open the dryer. “Clean before use.” I bet you recognize the phrase, which encourages you to clean out the lint in the dryer trap before starting the machine. The words seem harmless, helpful even, but they have started to drive me crazy.

Clean before use. Who in their right mind wants to touch the dryer lint of the stranger who used the machine before them? I certainly do not. Especially on a college campus, there is no telling where people’s clothes have been or what weird things their lint has gotten into. I always expect that people can clean out their own mess at the end of the cycle, but then I see the pesky lint tray sign. Rather than instructing people to clean up after themselves, it suggests that you leave your mess for the next person to deal with before they can use the machine. Can you imagine if we put the same sign above toilets?

Maybe that is an extreme comparison. And at the end of the day, touching a little dryer lint is really no big deal. But it bothers me because I have started to realize that “clean before use” is a mantra we follow much too often and is a problem that extends far beyond dryers.

We do not clean up after ourselves. Not unless we are the next person to need the room. Whether we leave literal messes on the floor or create problems that are harder to fix, we tend not to worry too much about the state we leave things in unless we know we will need them in the future. When we want to play with a broken toy we will put in the work to fix it before we use it, but we rarely make sure to leave our toys in working order for the next kid to come along.

It could be selfishness, or maybe it is ignorance, but it happens more than we care to admit. Just look at the disintegrating state of our planet. Activists are desperately trying to slow the disastrous results of years of climate change, which most people didn’t think or care about until they started seeing the effects. When we ignore the messes we are making, we are simply leaving them for future generations to clean up. And soon enough, the dryer lint is going to back up in the exhaust vent and start a fire.

So yes, maybe I should stop being so dramatic about dryer lint. But I also do not want to forget the lesson it taught me. That in laundry and in life, I will always strive to be a person who cleans after use.