Laundry

 

 

November 21, 2022

 

Greetings from the whiter whites,

 In the basement of my apartment was an old-fashioned wringer-washer.  I didn’t have enough confidence to learn how to make it work.  To mix the soap in and slosh things around, and then rinse the clothes, and push them through the rollers, cranking the handle on the side, squeezing the water into the tub.  Maybe putting them on the line that drooped across the tiny patio in the shadows between the houses.  I didn’t want to make the effort to even see the romantic aspect of it.

 My collection of laundry was minimal.  A pair of jeans, rarely washed anyway, sweatshirts, some t-shirts, a motley collection of socks, a few threadbare towels.  When I started wearing a tie, I bought my first dress shirt at Goodwill, and it got washed with everything else in one load.  The shirt, not the tie.

 Two blocks from where I lived was a small laundromat, wedged in the narrow slot of a building, fronted with dirty glass.  A few machines clunked and churned inside.  There were signs: “Use at your own risk.” which were designed to discourage people from asking for their quarters back.  Not that there was anyone to ask, usually.

 The distance was not daunting, but even with a strong need, there was often a reason to not do my laundry.

 I would put my things in a bag and walk the few minutes it took, and then empty the contents into the battered washer.  I’d put coins in a vending machine that dispensed miniature boxes of Tide and when it worked it would clunk into the tray.  Why would I go to the grocery store and invest in huge quantities of detergent?  Grocery stores, and the money used there, were for cans of corned beef hash, Hamburger Helper, Stroh’s beer.

 Sometimes I would sit and read while the machines chugged, which even in the cracked plastic chairs, was a cozy thing.  In the summer the door would be open, sometimes I’d drag a chair outside and sit.  In the winter the dryers made it warm inside, and I could almost doze.  Occasionally, others felt that tug, and would be sleeping on the floor, perhaps also not doing their laundry, but wearing it.

 Next door was a cramped convenience shop, what we called a party store.  It was John’s Mini Mart, though I can’t remember it having a sign saying that.  John owned the party store, which shouldn’t surprise you.  If the store was open, he was there behind the counter.  He rarely drew a breath or started a sentence without a cigarette in his mouth.

 Going to John’s party store was a key element in getting my laundry done, and also an important reason I didn’t get it done.  John would give me change for the coin-operated machines.  Before we were friends, he did this begrudgingly, even though I think he knew I’d leave more quarters with him, than in the slots of the washer.

 John knew me by name, and we stood and talked at the crowded little counter where he held court.  He would smoke and make jokes, talk about the city, the neighborhood, his sore feet. John sold most things you would need to not do your laundry.  Snacks, beer, cigarettes, magazines, newspapers. Beer.  If you examined the times where these distractions became more important than clean clothes, I’m afraid I would disappoint you.

 There were winter days when nothing moved in the city, and I would trudge through the snow to the Mini Mart, hoping to get a quart of milk, or something, and impossibly John would be there.  Smoking.  The other people in the neighborhood would be crowded in the little store, getting whatever desperation drove them out of their apartments for.  No laundry on those days.

 I met a few people in the coin-op, made those narrow friendships that come from flickering proximity.  People you could nod to later, get their name right, but not know if they were struggling or celebrating.  For me it was not a center for fellowship, although I enjoyed watching people there.  It was an obligation, a chore, an interruption, all housed in a place only slightly dingier than my apartment.

 And even so, when it closed, I felt like a relative had died.  It meant driving to wherever my clothes would get washed, which sounds like I was feeling inconvenience, not grief.  Maybe.  But the new coin-op, some miles away, while bigger and cleaner and more reliable, lacked something.  Maybe the ability to not do my laundry.

 In time I owned a basket to carry my dirty things and adjusted my long-term thinking to include 32 oz boxes of Tide.  I learned to scrub the collars of my shirts, to soak the whatever that green stain was from my towel.  I sat more patiently as the machines cycled, reading or talking with the other pilgrims paying homage in those lonesome places.  I thought of things more significant than how much time a quarter would buy in a tumble dryer.

 That time eroded a different time.  I spent fewer hours idling with John, allowed fewer detours from what should be done to those things that could be done instead.  The laundry was just an emblem of that change.  

 Time passed, and there were years of laundry for six people, not always my task, but I was part of it.  We have reliable machines right in the house, don’t even need to go to get change at the party store.  I don’t know if my techniques or effectiveness improved, but things got cleaner.

 Laundry now is a simple pleasure.  It became one of those things that bring easy satisfaction, where the results are tangible.  I fold things, not always correctly, and I think, and hum, and wonder about the days when doing laundry, or not doing it, was so colorful.

 Hope this finds you watching the spin ,

 David

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2022  David Smith