One recent day at the laundromat

There are fewer things as aggravating as the laundromat.

The other day the washing machine crapped out and I was waiting for parts. Yesterday I noticed I was in danger of running out of clean underwear which is a fearsome thing to contemplate.

Suppose I had an accident and had to go to the hospital?

So I scraped up a pile of skids, T-shirts, socks and a couple of pairs of jeans and headed off to the laundromat.

Most little kids are pretty good, but for some reason the aggravating ones always seem to accompany their moms to laundromats. 

Laundromats in themselves are aggraviting places to begin with.

When you couple the pair of them, laundromats and bratty kids with a grouchy old man that hates both you have trouble.

I saw my usual bad luck at laundromats show up. It was a bratty kid running around so I decided to run Plan A.

The first step is recon and I saw that the mother was one of those moms that let their kids run around because they are idiots and heaven help anyone that tries to interfere.

That made this one a slam dunk easy one for me.

The second time the hyperactive little yard ape plowed into my laundry basket I looked at him and said, "Hey, Kid. You want to go for a dryer ride? If ya break my old record of 50 cents worth I'll give you ten bucks." 

(Back then two bits bought you about 45 minutes of drying. Now it's 7 1/2 minutes for a quarter)

Needless to say, the mother came charging over and asked me what the hell I thought I was going to do with her precious little child of God.

"Simple," I snapped. "Once I got the kid into the dryer I was going to stuff ten or fifteen bucks worth of quarters into it to keep the little pest out of my hair while I got my wash done."
The look of shock on her face was precious.

Of course, she grabbed the little crumb snatcher, dragged him across the laundromat to the TV area and sat him down and told him to watch TV and stay away from me. The kid protested loudly  to his mom that he wanted to go for a dryer ride. I admit it was kind of funny listening to the mother discipline the kid for what appeared to be the first time in his short little life.

Then the offended mom went straight over to the dry cleaning section and started complaining. The woman behind the counter had heard me whan I offered the kid a dryer ride and I had seen her snicker.

"Oh. Dryer rides? We don't allow that here anymore." she said to the mother. "The kids would get sick and we got tired of cleaning up the vomit." She gave the woman a thoughtful look. "I think my youngest son lasted about $3.75 worth without getting sick once. The kids say it was an all-time record."

The mother walked away not looking too pleased.

Meanwhile I got my laundry going and sat down with a worn copy of Field and Stream. When my wash was done I took it out, bagged it and took it home wet to throw in my dryer that is working.

Life is now good. I am not in jail for homicide because I would have likely strangled the little whelp if his mother hadn't parked him in front ot the TV.

I am now ready in case of an accident and can go to the hospital because I now have clean underwear. If I do have an accident the doctor will see my clean underwear and know I come from a good family and try harder to save me.

When I got home I got a call. The parts are in and as I write this I have the machine up and running again.





To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY