I Fought the Laundry and the Laundry Won

            It always seems that I have my worst days when it rains.

The marina where I live has a washer and dryer available for use by the “live-aboards” (those of us who live on our boats – about twenty of us, in all).  However, the washer has been absent ever since the weather got cold enough to worry about pipes freezing.  Typically, they hook it up again at the end of March, but here it is, already April, and still no washer.

My laundry is mounting up, and things are getting ugly.  There have been murmured threats, on the parts of both the socks and the underwear, of plans to attack me in the night if I don’t get them clean pretty soon.  You see, rather than go to an area Laundromat, and have to put up with the screaming kids and the machines that you pay to chew your clothes to ribbons or burn them to unrecognizable ashes, I had just been buying new socks and underwear when I ran out of clean ones.  I learned this trick from a confirmed bachelor, and it was working out pretty well for me.  However, I now had 68 pairs of dirty underwear, and a similar complement of socks, and the natives were getting restless. I was worried enough to began locking my cabin door after nightfall.

Then, lo and behold, this morning I drove by the laundry area and the washer was back!  This caused me to hum merrily on my drive to the office, and to greet my office neighbors with such bonhomie that they were certain I had purchased yet another strange animal, pet addict that I am.  I ended each phone conversation with, “Have a sparkling day!”  I joked with my boss at the water cooler.  In short, I was unbearable.  People are used to the sarcastic, cynical Buckingham, and an obviously happy Buckingham is a Buckingham to be regarded with suspicion and dread.

By the time I closed up shop for the day and headed back to the boat, the sky was looking ominous.

I didn’t care.  I was doing laundry tonight! (Pathetic, isn’t it?)  What convenience!  Not only that, it’s also $1.25 per load cheaper than going to the public “In in one piece, out in several” Laundromat.

I made dinner, cleaned up the galley, grabbed a chair and a whip and some raw meat, and corralled the mountain of dirty laundry.  It took about fifteen minutes and a nasty tee shirt bite on my hand to get it all into the laundry bags, but perseverance and a quick zap with a Taser won the day, and I set out.

By now, it wasn’t just raining.  It was like God had opened a fire hydrant.  After 2.5 seconds, I was drenched to the bone, but on I trudged through the wall of water with grumbling laundry slung over my shoulder, a pocket full of quarters, and a song in my heart.

I stuffed the machine, poured in the soap, clubbed back some aggressive sweatpants, and put the money in the slot.

I pushed it in.

Nothing.

I couldn’t believe it.

I looked at the back of the machine.

There was not a single hose in sight.

I, in a lunatic moment, driven temporarily insane by the joy of the washer’s return, simply assumed that, if the machine was there, SOMEBODY HAD BOTHERED TO HOOK IT UP!

Cursing, I packed up my now Wisk-soaked laundry again and waded back through the monsoon to my boat, the outer hull of which was drier than I would ever be again.  Dumping the sodden, complaining mess in a corner, I stepped into the head (that’s boat-talk for “bathroom”) and toweled off.

And suddenly, it went quiet. 

A little too quiet, if you know what I mean. 
         I poked my head out of the head and glanced at the corner where I had left the laundry.

It was gone!

I threw back the hatch cover and dashed out on deck, only to discover that my laundry had scattered itself all over the dock.  The monsoon was still in full swing.

I guess it had had about enough, and figured that if it couldn’t get washed one way, it’d get washed another.

KIDS, THE RINSE CYCLE, AND SAVING SOULS

             I couldn’t put it off any longer.  Last night, I went to the laundromat to get my laundry done.

“Well, of course you went to the laundromat to get your laundry done!  What else would you do at a laundromat?” you cry.

Ahhhhh.  Thereby hangs a tale.

Now, being one of those poor souls who owns neither washer nor dryer, a trip to one of these institutions of automatic cleanliness is necessary once a week or so.   And believe me, if there wasn’t a bar right around the corner, even once a week would be too often!

I stuffed my dirty laundry into a pillowcase, jumped into my Dodge Aries K muscle car, and off I went.

The drive was short . . .way too short.

I sauntered in with my pillowcase full of clothing that smelled like it just got its “come on down” notification from the Underworld, stuffed a washer, dumped in soap, and paid the extortionist on duty the requisite ransom to run the machine.  I then settled back in a plastic chair, ergonomically designed to create something resembling the pain from a shattered spinal column within 27.5 seconds, to pass the time reading.

I’m so silly sometimes.

I had read exactly two paragraphs when I was hit in the head by an extremely hard rubber ball that two shrieking urchins were bouncing on the floor.  It scared me to think that a little rubber ball could generate so much hilarity in the youth of today, because if they think that’s funny, they must think that Henry Kissinger is a stand-up comedian.

At any rate, when they saw the hatred in my eyes (well, “eye” would be more accurate, since the other one had already swollen shut and was turning a shade of purple only Liberace could love), they scattered.  And, get this, they were crying!

Their mother stomped over to me and asked me if I thought scaring her children was funny.

“No,” I replied.  “What I think is funny is badly behaved children boiling in oil – right next to their idiot permissive parents!”

Deciding that further confrontation could be hazardous to her health, she walked away, looking fearful.

OK, back to the book.  Two more paragraphs, and . . .

CRASH!

Two other excrescences, one riding in a clothes cart, and the other pushing it, slammed into my right leg, the trick knee of which immediately sent me a post card saying, “Wish you were here.”

After my screaming subsided slightly, the mother of these creatures approached me.

“Why are you screaming like that?” she shouted.

 “Because it’s the only way I know how to scream when my knee is dislocated by children who were obviously raised by wolves!” I replied politely.

She took her leave, as well.

I located my pocketknife and slit my jeans at the knee so the swelling could continue unencumbered, sighed, and picked up my book again.

You guessed it . . . two paragraphs, and . . .

“Hello, ma’am ( I hate to be called “ma’am”).  Would you like a pamphlet about the Lighthouse Church?”

I looked up from my book.

“Do you see that I am reading?” I asked.  "What is it about this activity that you interpret as someone pining for conversation?"

“Well, yes, but this is so much more worthwhile than . . .what’s that you’re reading?”

I showed him the cover.  My book was entitled, How to Identify Human Skeletal Remains in the Field.  I gave him a wide, evil-looking smile.

“Well, I’ll just leave you a pamphlet,” he said, tossing one in my lap.  He proceeded to make a hasty round of the rest of the patrons, then departed.

I stuck the pamphlet in the back of my book, and attempted, once again, to concentrate.

Ten minutes later . . .

“Ma’am?” (there it was again) “I’d like to give you a pamphlet . . .”

Now was my chance!  “No, no!  I’d like to give you my pamphlet!” I cried, stuffing the pamphlet I’d received earlier into his sweaty hand.  Then I went back to my reading.

As the previous saver of souls did, this fellow made the rounds of the patrons, too.  I was able to tune him out until the buzzer sounded on my machine, and I had to get up to empty it.

As I was doing so, this moron approached me again.  I guess I really looked like I needed saving.

“Ma’am?” (blood pressure rising) “Do you know the way to Heaven?” he asked, with a capital H.

“No, but I know the way to San Jose, if that helps,” I said, tossing a tee shirt in the dryer.

“Ma’am?” (one more time, and I was going to move this man a good deal closer to God than he was prepared to be at that moment) “You don’t understand.  I already know the way.”

“Then why did you ask me?”

“I want to know if you know the way.”

“What difference does it make?  I’m not going right now, maybe not ever.  It sounds boring and I don’t like harp music.”

He was either stupid or deaf.

 “But ma’am,” (right! that’s it) wouldn’t you like me to show you the way to Heaven?  I’d be glad to!”

 “Pal, if you don’t leave me alone, I’d be glad to show you the way to hell!” I replied.

“But you don’t understand.  I want to lead you to Heaven!” he cried.

“What are you saying, then?  That you're here to kill me?  Help!  Help, police!  Murder!  Somebody dial 911!”

As a result of the ensuing fracas and the many statements that had to be taken, my laundry was left in the dryer far too long and was reduced to ashes that were several sizes too small.

But you know what?

It was worth it.