There's a Place

It's hard to believe, but I've never been in or had need of a laundromat before. Everywhere I'd ever lived has had it's own washer and dryer. I never really took those luxuries for granted, I thought - I've always known that I was lucky. But with the basement still flooded until (hopefully) tomorrow when the plumber comes and replaces our sump, and me woefully short on underwear and socks, RedFaery and I packed up a laundry basket of the essentials and drove three blocks down to the nearest one.

We decided to load two machines, which ate about $2.50 in quarters right away - silly me, I thought that would be enough for drying them as well! So we changed out a $10 for a couple of $5's and got more.

One of my first graphic design jobs was making manuals for Cissell dryers, and since I was laid off from that company twice (and it shortly thereafter was bought out), I was happy to use their competition, Speed Queen! Very satisfying.

30 minutes later, we packed the clothes into the dryer, set it for 40 minutes ($1.25) and enjoyed a basketball game (Duke narrowly pulling out a win in the 1st round). Nothing there was difficult - it was just really boring with nothing to do.

One lady was there the whole time we were, just randomly walking around and emptying dryers in different spots. There was no scheme to which dryers she was using, so I don't believe she was getting her own stuff. Another couple drug in a ton of clothing and blankets wrapped up in a Tweety Bird sleeping bag - someone else with flooding issues, we mused.

Probably the most annoying thing was that the bathroom was locked, so I had to ask the attendant to open it for me. Like a gas station. I understand they don't want random people coming off the streets to use the facilities, but it felt like I was asking for a hall pass or something.

All in all, not a bad experience. Learned a little more about our surroundings, and that's always a good plan.