This is a tale of how modest sartorial lives are ruined and paychecks unexpectedly set back.
On the southeastern corner of Waller and Shrader Streets lies one of the most dismal and disreputable laundromats that San Francisco has ever known. The machines have eaten several of my quarters and my attempts to retrieve this amount, which runs now to almost five dollars, have resulted in rampant laughter rather than refunds. The machines have torn a few shirts, even when I have put them on delicate with only two other shirts in a load. The stoner who mops the floors is an unsympathetic and bitter lout. His mopping style, if it can be called mopping, is comparable to someone casually brushing a terry cloth across a rusted steel table in lieu of a proper burnish. As a result, the floors remain pockmarked and asbestos-ridden and the place is probably violating some section of the San Francisco Health Code that I am too indolent to look up.
Why have I gone to this laundromat, a sensible reader might ask? Why have I willingly sunk into the depths for my weekly laundry experience? Because it's my neighborhood. Because it's my civic duty. Because I firmly believe in the commonality of shared experience. Because I'm down with it, baby, and I'm not one of those inveterate snobs who needs to get a manicure and a massage and a latte as I'm cleansing my garb. The laundry's the thing. Less is more.
But tonight these bastards went too far.
The laundromat, you see, closes at 9:45 PM. And I, trying to get my meager wardrobe clean before a weekend trip out of the City, mistakenly had faith in this place. I foolishly believed in the concept of noblesse oblige on the part of Mr. Stoner. I believed that retrieving one finished load for folding and then coming back a few minutes later (at 9:40 PM) to retrieve the second load would be observed and honored. Or that some word would be uttered as Mr. Stoner watched me pop in another quarter into the dryer and leave with Load #1. Certainly Mr. Stoner recognized that I had momentary left his bailiwick and gave me a nod and a grin as I exited the door with Load #1. I figured this was a telling sign that essentially communicated this: "Hey, bud, I know you're coming back for Load #2. No worries."
Instead, it was the peremptory death sentence for nearly every single pair of pants that I owned as well as a nifty green sweater that I have only worn perhaps five times.
When I arrived at 9:40 PM, the place was locked up. Five minutes before the official closing time (a number, I might add, that I respected), there was no one to be found. I banged on the door. I called the "emergency" line, painted on a placard that could be seen through the windows. (The number, by the way, is 415-386-4744.) I was there for perhaps fifteen minutes, pelting the glass door (which had been recently boarded up with plywood, perhaps because of other laundromat victims) and drawing a considerable amount of attention to myself. When somebody threatened to call the cops and told me to settle down (instead of maybe giving me the secret phone number of Mr. Stoner), I was forced to leave.
Now, pretty much every pair of pants I currently own (and the nifty green sweater) is in there. And I have a flight to catch tomorrow morning. All other flights are booked. There is no way that I can retrieve my clothes. There is no way that I can prevent the pants or the nifty green sweater from being pilfered by some lucky motherfucker who doesn't have nearly the sentimental connection that I have with my clothes. (Sentimentality in literature, Sarvas? Try clothes. James Wood would never understand.)
If the situation weren't so absurd, I'd be boiling with rage.
The funny thing about this is that it didn't have to happen. All Mr. Stoner had to do was tell me that he needed to catch a hit from his bong five minutes early and I would have been flexible, nay exuberant, over his lifestyle choice (medicinal, I would assume; prescribed by a proper authority to improve his mopping skills). But Mr. Stoner, as onerous as any casual addict, failed to convey to me how much he enjoyed applying his oral orifice to a plastic tube.
Or perhaps he did in the only manner he knew possible: royally screwing over a regular.
At this point, I think it's safe to say that I'll have to reevaluate my laundromat of choice. Forgive me if the posts are brief in the coming days, but I mourn my pants. And if you see my walking the streets with boxers, you'll know who exactly is responsible: a moribund and solipsistic asshole who only had to say five word: Get your stuff and go.
Posted by DrMabuse at June 17, 2005 11:11 PM