Letters from the Laundromat
In my hardscrabble younger years, the laundromat was a necessary but even then, mostly pleasurable destination. Now that I’m middle aged and middle class with a private laundry room of my own, it has evolved into an occasional treat— something on the order of a Caramel Macchiato that I really shouldn’t or ducking out of work to catch a matinée.
Bring a notebook and you’ll find you can write several hundred considered words over the duration of a visit. If you’re an amateur doodler like I am, a couple of wash loads allows just enough time to render a thorough if unaccomplished drawing of the broken soda machine.
Though many laundromats offer wifi these days, cellular phones and laptops are sure to zap the simple pleasure of unstructured time found floating in the air like so many jettisoned dryer sheets. Flipping through the endless bounty of the Internet’s daily moral outrages, you’ll miss the chance to challenge the high score on the Ms. Pacman game, or to find yourself roped into the age-old debate of whether or not a hotdog is a sandwich with a couple sharing a bottle of wine and slices of gas-station cheddar.
You never can tell what you’ll see during the Spin cycle of the industrial Whirlpool front-loader. The last time I went, I saw a would-be comedian testing iterations of a single corny setup: “I like my women like I like my jokes… black,” “I like my women like I like my jokes… a little juvenile for my age,” “I like my women like I like my jokes… short.” I’m not sure I’d pay to watch her do stand-up at a club, but it was worth my $2.25 in quarters, and the hamper full of clean clothes sweetened the deal.
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