Laundromat Diaries Part One

The beginning saga of one man's inner dialogue while doing laundry in laundromats.

The Laundromat Diaries Part One

I attended a midwest corn-belt university and lived in a 12 story high-rise, quad tower designed dormitory. There was a central ground floor between the towers where the cafeteria, front desk and mailboxes were situated.  My room was in the southwest tower, on the twelfth floor, designated as a study floor. That meant during the week you could study without the noise, distraction and chaos of nightly beer parties, hallway miniature golf tournaments and multi-floor, competition bike races that dominated Dante’s lower dormitory levels. Those kind of circuses were only moderately tolerated on the study floors during non-finals weekends. 

I was fortunate enough to procure a private room, which meant that I didn't have to share my stuff with a roommate, but also meant a measure of boredom vis-a-vie no roomie to talk to between classes or long, stay-on-campus weekends. Each floor in the dorm had conveniently located bath facilities featuring military aligned sinks, mirrors and a double row of shower stalls, however the laundry facilities for each tower were inconveniently located thirteen floors below in the basement.  

Most of my senior year I was without a girlfriend, a repeat of my junior year. I was still licking my wounds from a freshman/sophomore break-up that pretty much ravaged my self-esteem and libido. It's all typical college stuff, long distance relationships and such. The kind of tear-rusted girders that rivet together and build character. With nothing to drive back home for on the weekends, I stayed on campus and between arduous study, did my laundry. 

During the week, I’d deposit my dirty laundry in a large, cinch-able duffle bag. By the end of the week the canvas tube was full and I'd hoist it over my shoulder, grab a handful of quarters for detergent and fabric softener and head for the elevators. I'd usually have to stop off at the main lobby floor to purchase a laundry token, a rectangular plastic tag with magnetic lines printed on the surface. These plastic tokens operated the washer's and dryers. I suspected they didn’t use quarters to run the machines as they would probably have been vandalized to fund weekly “Growler Night” binges.

From the lobby, an average wait for an elevator took about ten minutes for it to arrive from above. There were only two elevators per tower. Once on, you hoped no one else was getting on as few wanted to go to the basement level before ascending again. Sometimes the wait was more than ten minutes so I'd sling the duffle over my shoulder and walk to the backside of the tower and use the stairs-  four descending zig-zag lines to the cement bottom. Once in the basement, you traveled a long linoleum floored corridor, between reinforced cement walls and a jungle of pipes, vents, and other curious tubing spaghetti-ed to the ceiling.

The dorm laundromat was a 16x16 foot square room, painted a grey shade of yellow and pea soup green.  For twelve floors, there were only four washers and two large capacity dryers per tower. What students usually did was stuff their laundry in a washer or dryer and then leave, going back to their rooms, not wanting to wait in an underground box that resembled an abandoned bomb shelter. Sometimes if the student forgot to collect his laundry, he’d return to find it unceremoniously thrown on the floor to make room for the next student’s dirty clothes, there by creating an exercise in futility.  I usually just stayed and waited, a short twenty minute wash and forty five minute dry wasn’t an eternity. It was at this time and for this reason, I acquired the practice of bringing a crossword puzzle book along with me to pass the time. 

I worked crosswords because no one could study in the dorm’s laundromat, the vibration and gurgle-churn of the washers and the humming whir tumble-drone of the dryers echoed in the cement box like wharf rats mating in a tin can. The florescent lights overhead emitted a dingy gloom that caused your eyes to unfocused and you had to shake your head and rub them every ten minutes to keep them functioning. 

When a student entered the laundry room, they always banged into the crash bar on the heavy steel doors at either end, causing a clangorous thunder to bounce from one side of the room to the other. Doing laundry on a weekend was a dreary, loathsome chore usually avoided for as long as possible. It was during those sequestered laundry moments while sitting in plastic bucket-seat chairs scratching guessed-at archaic words into little boxes and waiting for available machines that my mind would wander to my past relationships and failures. 

It was during one of these pitiful moments of idle reverie that the steel door opened and in glided an arresting vision. A co-ed of supermodel proportions, cascading chestnut hair, long tanned legs, sparkling sapphire eyes, wearing a loose, torn mid-drift sweat shirt over short shorts and pink deck shoes. Her naturally highlighted hair was done up in a high mounted ponytail and she didn’t wear any make-up. Only Himalayan mountain snow and sunlight were purer. 

She gave me a brief, courteous smile and went about unloading two large bags of laundry. Her expressive hands separated them into colors and whites. The interesting thing was, it wasn't her laundry. She must have felt my curiosity and turned, not making eye contact and hurriedly said, "My boyfriends laundry." and went back to her task. 

The FIEND! The B*****D!  What manner of man would set this lovely creature to the task of laundering his own soiled garments? More curious, what woman in the liberated age of the mid seventies would consent to defiling herself with such equine stable labor. I could only stare. I, who was alone, without girlfriend, languishing away in the bowels of a dormitory doing my own laundry on a desolate weekend. I was struck dumbfounded. I could only watch as the beautiful maiden went about her menial task. She soon finished and ran like a gazelle out the door, barely making a sound. My washer had stopped and I had to wait for a dryer. 

Suddenly the laundry room’s steel door crashed open and a male student strode in, arms swinging, with the toe-outward swagger of a jock. He was dressed in a ragged T-shirt, grime-stained sweatpants and wore flip-flops on hairy bare feet. He sniffed his nose loudly when passing where I sat and stood by his dryer with a disgusted look on his face for having arrived too soon. We didn't talk. I wondered if the co-ed, who was here only moments ago, had a boyfriend like this character. 

The jock passed his time by scratching his groin and digging for something in his ear. The bad-smell-sneer never left his face. Shortly his dryer stopped and he flung open the door so hard it almost left it's hinges. Vigorously stuffing his laundry bag with warm wads of cotton, rayon and fleece, he slammed the door shut and left the room. I could now dry my clothes, but I wasn't in a hurry, I hoped to get another look at the supermodel laundress. 

I fantasized about introducing myself and starting up a conversation, "My those are funny clothes for a model" or "Do you hire out for ironing as well?" I imagined her laughing and smiling and forgetting about her boyfriend’s selfish needs. As I watched my own thoughts and laundry tumbling in dark dryer chaos, I hated her boyfriend and I was determined to steal her away from him when she returned to finish her demeaning chore. 

My moment came and went in a single opening of the laundry door. In came the girl hanging all over this long haired dude. He was thin, shirtless and had dark brown unwashed hair past his shoulders. He had a cig dangling from his lips  curled in a s**t-eating smile. She kissed him numerous times about the neck and literally jumped to her task of not only retrieving his laundry but with the audacity of folding it right in front of me as he patted and pinched her a*s laughing as one who tortures small animals might. 

That laundry weekend was one of the first moments in a long sequential line of many that locked up my brain with questions that can never be answered. The twisted, incongruous couple left, her naughty-giggle echoing down the subterranean halls.  I stuffed my unfolded clothes and rumpled thoughts back into my duffle bag and headed toward the elevators dragging my conscience behind. 

Author's Note

Another oldie, hopefully punched-up from the first printing. But this time accompanied by Parts Four and Five, so slog on and as always critiques and comments most welcome.

Reviews

[Gibbons]

You have some wonderful turns of phrase. I particularly enjoyed "The bad-smell-sneer". The more meditative pace and length of the story may limit your audience on the site. I enjoyed this piece. It is well written and evocative. I feel there is no urgency to the progression of the plot (not a criticism) but I am curious if you were aiming for more of a painting a picture with words.

[roarke]

Hi G, thanks for the read and comments. I'm resigning myself to a genre niche of "literary prose" whatever that means. Not a poem and not straight forward literature. Same as my life, lol. Somewhere along the way the writing might resolve itself into something categorizable. I dunno. As for the length, yeah I know. I've written shorter pieces, posted excerpts, etc. I don't know where it all pans out, I guess if the writing is good enough to hold attention, the "right" reader will continue on. If not, or the length is daunting to other readers, they will click off. In the end, it's possible an author's "demographic" will organically coagulate... or not. hahahahaha. I'm satisfied my write captured your attention, hope you'll partake again. Best R.

[Julie McCarthy (juliesp..]

OOOhhh loved this to bits. This is so intriguing I must read all the other chapters.thankyou so much for sharing this part of your life. You write so well I am jealous lol
this is going on my favs now!!

[roarke]

Thank you very much Julie. As you read the other LD parts, let me know if you see a transition in the narrator.

[angel]

Great! I was there with ya, my friend. I especially enjoyed your description of the jock, he of the hairy, flip-flopped feet.
I never lived in a dorm. Read about it; I adored HEARTS IN ATLANTIS.
I majored in English, with a concentration of Creative Writing, at Greenfield Community College in MA when I was 32. My mom had taken me out of high school at 16; as a Jehovah's Witness, she knew that the world was ending in 1975 anyway, and it was 1971, so what the hell did I need any more education for, anyway? My college money, saved for a decade, went to her church.
So...the Lady enters the picture! Onward, then; see you on the other side of PART 2...

[roarke]

Yeah, somehow someway the world is always ending every other year or so. And like you've stated hear, there are so many ways we navigate this life... I think now it's best to steer one's "excursion" to hit as many of those ways as possible... A, if you are going to read them all, mind the slippery slopes. lol

[angel]

I'll be careful!

[barleygirl]

This is (so far) my favorite of your laundromat rantings. You do an excellent job of pumping up the drama with dramatic turns of phrase that are hilarious in the way the truth is skewered by your dramatic renderings. So recognizable from the college morass, but never quite identified as unmistakably as you've done here for us. I wish I could remember, not only the details, but the inner impressions to all this crap as it's happening, as perfectly as you do (((HUGS))) Fondly, Margie

[roarke]

Thanks for slogging through this one BG, I consider it the weakest of my LD series, because it's a bit "manipulated" for effect, i.e. comedic. I'm glad you can tell the period mood of the first write. You picked up on the personal changes/evolution and I hope that holds true for the rest of the series. What does LD mean? Where does it go? In the words of David Letterman: "Is this something?" I dunno.