Men do the laundry in this 3,000-strong 'Washing Machine Club,' gathering for 'wash-ins'

Dreading laundry day? Not these guys.

A dedicated community of middle-aged men LOVES washing clothes.

Founded in 1984, the group now has 3,000 members from around the world.

Members gather several times a year for what they call "wash-ins." Some even travel from as far away as Russia or Canada to wash clothes.

"Everybody's got their favorite part of the cycle. We've got people who love the wash, they love the rinse or the spin, or the drain. I'm a spin guy. I love the spin," Jon Charles with the Washing Machine Collectors Club said.

Charles is a self-proclaimed "washer collector enthusiast."

The Washing Machine Collectors Club got started in the 1980s.

"Now we have like 3,000 members from all over the world," Charles said. "We get together for washes. We do laundry until like 4:00 in the morning. We do our margaritas and our laundry together. We 'cheers' to laundry."

For these guys -- laundry is a big deal.

"We'll watch the cycles. A lot of us -- we'll sit there and watch the whole cycle go through," Charles said. "All 3,000 of us come in with a story, like 'I thought I was the only one. I thought I was the only person in the world that did this.'"

For Charles, it's not just about the laundry. He has quite the collection of laundry machines.

"I've got 59 machines, and I've got 22 hooked up and running in the basement. I have a good representation of everything that was made from 1938 to today," Charles said. "I take them all apart and I restore them, because I want to know how everything works inside the machine. The laundry is, for me, sort of the icing on the cake."

"These machines represent ways of doing things in each decade that changed -- that we no longer do -- and I think it's something that should be preserved for other people, if we can get them interested. I can't just go to a cocktail party and say 'how's your washer doing?' They would look at me like I was crazy -- but I can get together with these guys, and let my hair down. It's just so much fun to be able to have a conversation about it," Charles said.

"Laundry is a chore for everybody else -- but for us it's play," Charles said.