The People You Meet

are all as sad as you

There are many amazing folks at the laundromat, including:

• The mother with a dozen kids. She takes up about ten washers and ten dryers at any given time, her kids are unruly, and they usually smell like they were playing with a wet dog. There are typically one or two of these women at the laundromat most visits. Good luck trying to watch TV, her kids already lost the remote.


• The drunk. It is not clear if he is actually doing laundry, or just simply saw the lights and people, and wandered in for kicks. He will typically try to talk to you, or to anyone who will listen, his breath smells of whiskey, and at some point, he will ask you if you have a cigarette. You are nine, you don’t have a cigarette.


• The old lady who demands that you use her dryer, because there’s 10 minutes left. This woman will tell you “here, use this dryer! There’s 10 minutes left!”. This is of course after you have already loaded all of your laundry into an empty dryer. You will tell her “no, it’s okay”, and with this, she will become extremely insulted.


• The possible homeless person. This fella wanders around the laundromat, asking everyone for quarters. It is usually unsure if they are just down on their luck, and didn’t quite bring enough quarters to clean all of their dirty socks with holes in them, of if they are literally a homeless person, trying to earn enough scratch to get their next meth fix. Either way, thank your mom for exposing you to this lovely slice of Southern charm and ask if you can go live with dad.