It’s a Monday evening and I’m sitting at the laundromat. It’s like that episode of Friends where Ross helps Rachel with her laundry at a packed laundromat in the city. Only this Rachel is without a Ross. Without a laundry cart to race around in. And without a lively scene to hold her interest.
I should give my laundromat its due. If this were a mid-America suburb and not the mini Puerto Rico I call home, my laundromat would rival your neighborhood Walmart Supercenter. For one thing, it’s open 24/7. Cheap linoleum and unmonitored children line the floor. And enough fast food wrappers sift throughout -- like tumbleweed rolling across a western rerun -- to paper the bathroom floor of the McDonalds up the street. Oy.
Swap out the shopping carts piled high with frozen goods for a laundry cart misshapen by dirty laundry and you have one of the two aisles at my Laundromat. Currently, I’m planted on a Crayola blue plastic chair, legs squished up against the rim, warding off the oncoming caravan of laundry carts careening down the aisle. My self-pity reeks more than the smelly pile of socks lying next to me.
I used to get my laundry done over the weekend. I had myself on a strict bi-monthly laundry plan. I stuck to it like the layer of laundromat-generated lint now sticking to me. But then work intervened. Fifty hour weeks left me in sniveling form. Procrastination took me captive. Self-denial blinded me to the growing mound of clothing in my hamper. And so in the end, the wear and tear of living in New York left its victims. Mainly my socks and underwear.
Mondays have now become my day of penance to purge the dirt -- literally -- from my life. So here I sit: meditating on dirt and work.
I should give my laundromat its due. If this were a mid-America suburb and not the mini Puerto Rico I call home, my laundromat would rival your neighborhood Walmart Supercenter. For one thing, it’s open 24/7. Cheap linoleum and unmonitored children line the floor. And enough fast food wrappers sift throughout -- like tumbleweed rolling across a western rerun -- to paper the bathroom floor of the McDonalds up the street. Oy.
Swap out the shopping carts piled high with frozen goods for a laundry cart misshapen by dirty laundry and you have one of the two aisles at my Laundromat. Currently, I’m planted on a Crayola blue plastic chair, legs squished up against the rim, warding off the oncoming caravan of laundry carts careening down the aisle. My self-pity reeks more than the smelly pile of socks lying next to me.
I used to get my laundry done over the weekend. I had myself on a strict bi-monthly laundry plan. I stuck to it like the layer of laundromat-generated lint now sticking to me. But then work intervened. Fifty hour weeks left me in sniveling form. Procrastination took me captive. Self-denial blinded me to the growing mound of clothing in my hamper. And so in the end, the wear and tear of living in New York left its victims. Mainly my socks and underwear.
Mondays have now become my day of penance to purge the dirt -- literally -- from my life. So here I sit: meditating on dirt and work.
To be continued (pending deep thoughts)...
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