First trip to the laundromat

Up until this point in my life, I have been fortunate enough to never be forced to used a laundromat regularly.  In fact, I only remember having to use it once, and that was to wash the curtains at home in California one Christmas break.  And I remember it was An Ordeal.  I only had a $20.00 bill, there was that weird coin machine, I had a ton of quarters, I didn’t know what to do with them afterward, and yeah.  It was a big deal.

Since that naive and happy moment in my life, I’ve learned that doing laundry in a dorm or an apartment building can be lethal.  Men and women are waiting in line, getting ready to pounce on the first machine that shows signs of finishing a cycle, the carts used to wheel around wet clothes to the dryer used just as often to wheel away dismembered inhabitants who lost the fight for the washer.  The long and short of it is that I hate doing laundry.  I hate having to collect quarters like they’re manna from heaven, I hate lugging clothes up and down stairs because they’ve been left to collect in the hamper too long, and I hate, hate, HATE making it all the way through the cycles, using up God knows how many quarters in the process, taking everything up the stairs, and THEN discovering that one crucial, really smelly shirt you had been meaning to throw into the hamper for 5 weeks but hadn’t because then it might stink up the room, or because the hamper was just too damn inconvenient that one night you stumbled in to go to sleep at 2.

Since moving into this apartment, I’ve been doing my laundry at friends’ apartments or dorms.  I was going over there anyway, right?  It wouldn’t be such a big deal if I’d just throw a few things into the washer while we watched that movie, yeah?  I did this because even though I ultimately had to carry my laundry farther than if I went to the laundromat down the street, at least I was familiar with the setup and clientèle of the laundry room in the apartment or dorm.  Whereas what goes on in a legitimate laundromat was still unfamiliar to me.

Until today.

After weeks, WEEKS of wearing underwear and clothes I could only look at myself in without my glasses on, I decided today would be the day I would go to the laundromat.  With my friends in dorms and apartments occupied in other ways, I had no choice.  Unless I wanted to wear a trashbag to work tomorrow.  So I gathered absolutely everything together I could think of to wash, and tried to go to the laundromat.  I had a plastic bag, my backpack, and my laundry bag stuffed to the brim with dirty things eager to be cleaned, and by the time I made it down the 5! flights! of stairs! I knew I was in way over my head.  My laundry bag started to rip at the seams, but I knew I couldn’t leave anything behind because if it was bad enough to find out I forgot to wash something when the machines were in my own buildings, it would do me in if I intentionally had to leave things behind when going to a laundromat 2 blocks away.  Why I was hellbent to do everything in one trip is a different story.

By the grace of God I managed to get my clothes to the corner store where I spotted a grocery cart.  The corner store man here, he has a soft spot for me.  The first time I went into the store, he asked if I was from Tel Aviv.  While I had to disappoint him and say no, he still smiles at me whenever I go in there, as if I remind him of the sweetheart he let get away 30 years ago.  Anyhow, with this friendly connection in mind, I entered the store to ask if I could use the grocery cart to wheel my things over.  Before my friend even had the chance to answer, a customer butted into the conversation to inform me that while the grocery cart was not his, he knew the guy whose cart it was and he couldn’t say for sure if I could borrow the cart or not.  So he wouldn’t let me borrow the cart.

I got angry at this.  This is a COMMUNITY I live in.  Somewhere neighbors should help out neighbors, like that one time those guys moved the table up the stairs for Mary Kate and me without us even asking them, and when those people generously offered me a place to stay when I got locked out.  Those moments of living here made me hopeful that I was not alone in this after all, that people on my street wouldn’t walk past me if they saw me on the street in a frozen heap under 50 tons of dirty laundry, my frostbitten hands hanging onto quarters like they were solid gold, my detergent lathered all over my body in my final attempt to keep warm outside while dragging my 50 tons of laundry to the laundromat.  However, this man had other things in mind.  And I had none of it.  I marched out of that corner store, put my things in the grocery cart, and then told the man I was taking his buddy’s cart to the laundromat, he could find the cart there if he wanted it in the next 15 minutes, and if he had any issues, we could talk about it then.

When I made it to the laundromat (the Soap Opera Laundromat, in case you are wondering), I knew immediately upon entering that this place would not be like the romanticized ones in movies.  I would not sit in a plastic orange chair waiting for my wash to finish while reading Tender is the Night, making eyes at the handsome stranger over at the other end of the row of chairs, each of us keenly aware we are the only two in the place, and eventually striking up a conversation while both of us are folding clothes, discovering we both like boxer dogs, Louis XIV style furniture, and ceramic beads.  No, there weren’t even chairs in this place.  People instead stood awkwardly in front of the machines, scowling at other people and their machines, resenting those who kept on adding quarters into the dryers to make longer cycles.

I managed to nab two open washing machines immediately, and commenced my cycles, with people asking me every three minutes or so if I was going to take my clothes out soon, would I be washing more clothes, or how much longer I expected my clothes to be in there.  The part of town I live has a large population of Senegalese, and today was the day all the women decided to commune in the Soap Opera Laundromat to wash and gossip in their native tribal tongue.  These are large, imposing women, and I am a short, stocky Eastern European white girl.  I had to stand on a ledge to see where I was pouring my detergent into the washing machine.  While I’m confident I could probably beat up most of the nerd girls at my old school for a machine if push came to shove, I knew I stood no chance against these Amazons.  I tried to be as invisible as possible, which is hard when you’re the only one who’s not involved in a conversation.

By the time I finished drying my clothes, I witnessed one washing machine spill its sudsy contents on the floor, some article of clothing? pillow? explode orange foam EVERYWHERE, and lots and lots of people wedge themselves past me to use the bathroom while I was holding the fort down with MY DRYER.  THIS IS MY DRYER.  I AM USING THIS DRYER.  DO NOT COME NEAR IT.

I can’t wait to go again.

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