Off Topic: Renewing an Old Acquaintance

Tonight I sat down with an old friend I hadn’t seen in a couple of decades or more, the Laundromat. This evening I checked to see if the clothes needed more time in the dryer and found them still very damp. I pushed the “start” button and nothing happened. Tried it again. Nothing. Checked to make sure the door was closed, and the regular things you’d do in this situation. Nothing. So Mr. J got out the flashlight and our household appliances repair book and I took the wet sheets and socks and headed out for the local laundry. Unfortunately the closest one was closed so I hit the main drag and headed south. A few miles down the road I found another one that was open later. For the first four years of our married life Mr. J and I spent most Sunday afternoons with a roll of quarters and some reading or homework, listening to the hum and rumble of industrial strength washers and dryers. The elderly attendant loved us, well, Mr. J anyway. On the rare times when he wasn’t with me she always asked about him and told me how good he was to me. I hate to think what she told him on the rare times when I wasn’t there. I have happy memories of those Sunday afternoons. We could (and did) wash every item of clothing we owned in 2 or 3 loads. Somehow the addition of small people to our household has geometrically increased the amount of laundry.

So, into the Laundromat I went, with a full clothesbasket and a pocketful of quarters. There were a few other people there plus the attendant but it wasn’t as lively as I thought it might be on a Saturday night in an area with a lot of twenty-somethings living there. Aren’t laundries supposed to be pickup spots these days? Prices had gone up but not as much as I expected and I overpaid for time on the dryer. Forty minutes later I was back home. Mr. J might be able to fix our current dryer but chances are, given that it was in the house when we bought it 13 years ago, it will have to be replaced, and that will probably require an electrician. There are a number of factors that make this situation an inconvenience as opposed to a disaster. We have the money for a new dryer and the electrician if needed, as well as some flexibility in work schedules to be home for deliveries and so on. We had done most of the laundry for the household already. Maybe another half hour stop at the Laundromat tomorrow. We have a working vehicle so while the laundry within walking distance was closed I could easily get to another one. We keep a separate change basket for quarters so it was easy to come up with a few dollars worth. It is a two parent household so I didn’t have to take the kids with me or scrounge emergency child care. We have extra sheet sets so it wasn’t absolutely necessary that things be dried tonight. There are two or three neighbors we are certain would let us use their dryer if we wanted to, but that gets tricky because I’d need to monopolize it for several hours over a week.

Were I a single parent or if we didn’t have a car or some savings or any number other things, this would be devastating. It is important for those of us with numerous cushions in life to recognize this and think of how things are for those without. It is those personal safety nets that keep some afloat while others sink and having them is more luck than all of us would like to believe.