We all love a multitasking appliance (hello, air fryer!), but there are some things that are only good for one-time use. In a recent installment of the Bon Appétit series The Receipt, a flight attendant revealed that she had heard horror stories from co-workers about hotel coffee machines being used to wash pantyhose and underwear.
“I’m thinking about the eternal question: to brew coffee in the hotel room or not,” the flight attendant wrote. “It’s something that most flight attendants have strong feelings about, and many senior mums love to tell horror stories about having coffee pots in the room used to rinse pantyhose, among other things.”
Yes, you read that correctly. While the flight attendant wrote that it was likely an urban legend, online flight attendants had mixed reactions. In response to someone who asked this question on Quora, one user wrote that he’d never heard of it in his 10 years as a flight attendant. “It’s much easier to either pack clean underwear or, if you run out of underwear, just wash them in the sink and let them dry over the radiator or window,” they wrote.
“So you think flight attendants only bring one pair of underwear with them on their trips and wash them every night,” wrote another user and former flight attendant. “If for any reason you want to wash an item of clothing, lather it in the sink, not in the coffee maker.”
As Bon Appétit explained in a separate article on the subject, “rumors have long circulated around the internet that coffee pots are being used as ‘miniature underwear washing machines,'” as an anonymous commenter on Reddit puts it. And in general, flight attendants and former flight attendants and hotel employees advise guests to order their morning cup of coffee at breakfast, order room service, or bring their own drink.”
whoops
The author of the story The Receipt said that as long as it looks clean, they still use the coffee maker.
And as we’ve reported in the past, whether or not you use a hotel coffee maker, it’s probably time to clean out the coffee maker in your home.
Will you be using the hotel coffee machine on your next trip?
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Allison Arnold is Associate SEO Editor at Delish, where she writes about kitchen appliances and food and culture. She enjoys working out almost as much as eating and has an extensive Google Maps ranking system for her favorite restaurants and bars. You can watch her share steamy insights into the world of food and plan her next trip – all with multiple cans of seltzer open at the same time.
