The One With The East German Laundry Detergent. In this episode you’ll get many laughs out of Chandler and Phoebe breaking up together, Monica and Joey making a plan to break up a couple so they can each date one of them, and Ross and Rachel going to do laundry on their first unofficial “date”.
A life lesson that can be taken from this episode is: always try to stick up for your friends as well as Ross does. No matter what the consequences might be for him, he tries to make sure that his friends come first, and this episode showcases that well. When he and Rachel go to do their laundry together he sticks up for her in more than one way. The most obvious one is where he confronts the lady who tries to steal Rachel’s machine and he makes the lady give the machine back. He doesn’t care that all the other people in the laundry room are staring at him, he just makes sure to get Rachel her machine back. I mean, yes, he also could be doing this because he’s in love with her, but as of right now in the show he’s just being a great friend. Secondly, he sticks up for her when she admits that she’s never done laundry before, and he makes sure not to mock her or make fun of her for it. In this example he’s only shielding her from humiliation about herself, but still I think he does it in a very nice and kind way. Finally, he sticks up for her when he sees that she has accidentally turned all her white clothes pink, because of the red sock. He even goes as far as to make up a laundry song to try and shield her from disappointment. Now if this is not called sticking up for your friends, I don’t know what is. Out of all the characters on the show, Ross definitely wins the prize for “kindest friend”.
The Squinting Observer 