Heavy Load: a perspective; Part One

I’ve always thought it’s weird that the laundromat, a place you go to clean things, is so filthy and disgusting. It would not be a stretch of the imagination to see a water-logged rat in or under one of those rusted out machines. And what would you do? You’d move down to the next machine. No one ever goes there because he has a choice. I think of depression, feeling sickly, being fixated on a negative idea. Everyone is angry. And why shouldn’t they be? They had to lug their filthy clothes in heavy bags, swung over their shoulders like a dead animal all the way from their home. They are reminded of their own poverty. Even their grandmother who lived on a farm had a washing machine, a big one to fit quilts and overalls, and a clothesline outside for the sheets to dry on a beautiful sunny day. The City Laundromat: house of misery. Step inside but don’t drop your underwear on the ground because hundreds of diseased and troubled people have walked and rolled across and spat on the tiled floor.

I’m saying this and then I think: but still. I can remember cold snowy days when my friends and I would walk home from the bus stop and, not wanting to leave each other, ducked in to the Laundromat to get a bubblegum ball from the machine or play pinball. We’d take off our wet socks, our feet corpse-white and frozen, and put them in the dryer for a dime. Then we’d play the games in bare feet, still wearing our coats and backpacks. The socks would dry for 20 minutes and when we put them on we’d collapse on the bench: ahhhhhhhh.

I guess it’s all about perspective.

Anyway. I was in the Laundromat recently because that’s where my neighborhood Starbucks is, as well as a few pinball games. Sometimes I go in there with Harry who likes to try his luck with the Claw. I used to think that the Claw was a carny invention built specifically to rob people. I couldn’t believe he really wanted to give it a try.

You might as well throw your money in the trashcan.

Throw my money… wait, what?

In the trashcan, throw it in the trash, save yourself the heartache.

In the trash?

Yes honey.

Noooo. Why?

You can’t win anything in that game. It’s just a piggy bank for the Laundromat.

Mom you’re crazy.

Well go on then give it a try.

I sigh and wait with the other exhausted, crap-coffee drinking, Laundromat-using people in line.

Five minutes later there are purple rabbit ears being waved under my chin.

Oh Maaaaaaaaaaaam, look at thiiiii---is.

His secret is that he doesn’t think of it as a game of chance. He just picks what he wants and grabs it. Metal-claw-that-doesn’t-clutch-properly be damned.