The Wash

Everyone has got that one, life-sustaining chore that they absolutely hate doing. For Girlfriend, it's the dishes. For some it's, say, shopping for groceries. And judging by the man standing next to me on the subway this morning, for some it's bathing with any regularity whatsoever. For me, it's laundry. I hate doing laundry. The very thought of doing laundry turns me instantly from the reasonably intelligent, 26-year-old man that I am into a petulant, whiny 8-year-old. You know how you'll see screaming, thrashing little kids being dragged out of Toys R Us or Chuck E. Cheese and they'll go all limp in their parent's arms and generally try to make it as difficult as possible for them to be dragged toward the minivan that's attempting to whisk them away from all the fun? That screaming, thrashing little kid is me, the minivan is laundry and Toys R Us or Chuck E. Cheese is all the other things in the world that I'd rather be doing. I am only exaggerating slightly.

Because of my feelings towards laundry, I have for years sent my clothes out to be washed by the capable hands of others. Even during past financial crises (money problems are a reoccurring theme in my life in much the same way that sunsets tend to happen a lot on planet Earth), I've always managed to scrape together the cash to have someone else deal with it so I don't have to. Discovering that this was an option was a momentous occasion in my life on par with my finding out that the internet contained pictures of naked ladies. Unfortunately, given my current state of getting-out-of-debtness (speaking of reoccurring themes), availing myself of the drop-off service has now become as thing of the past.

Which is how I found myself in a laundromat in Bay Ridge last night, pumping quarters into machines and quietly but sincerely praying for my own death. I realized right away that it's not the physical act of doing the laundry that I hate. Loading and unloading clothes takes, like, thirty seconds and lifting a pile of shirts really doesn't take that much energy. No, it's the being in the laundromat that does me in. It's the waiting. The horrible, horrible waiting. "But C-dog, why don't you bring a book? You CAN read, right?" Yes, thank you; I finally learned last year. But that's not the point... while normally I can get down with a book just about anywhere, when I step across the threshold of a laundromat, something unexplained and tragic happens. My attention span, not a strong, steadfast thing to begin with, completely evaporates. I can maybe muster two or three pages, but then my eyes wander. I'll begin to pace. I'll start to see how many times I can flip a quarter in the air and catch it without dropping it. I'll attempt to whistle. To keep my brain from leaking out my ears, I'll begin to play trivia games in my head; like, I'll try to name as many songs by a given band as I can before the dryer stops.

Side Note- I inadvertently hit on the perfect band to play this little game with last night: The Smiths. All their songs are kind of long and sentence-y and you really have to focus to get the wording exactly right. It took me at least five minutes to come up with "Frankly, Mr. Shankly" and another ten to pin down "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me." This also works with Meat Loaf songs for the same reasons, but after "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" and "Bat Out of Hell," you'll find you only get sadder and more depressed with each additional title you can name. Knowing a bunch of Meat Loaf songs is on par with knowing verbatim the starting line-up of the '76 Texas Rangers; a sure sign that you've wasted your life.

Anyway, as I was saying... being in a laundromat saps me of mental stamina and by the time the spin cycle has rolled around, I'll have completely given up all hope and allowed myself to be hypnotized by the swirling clothes.

After all of the machine-work was finished, it was time for the final, most painful part of the process; The folding of the clothes. Here's the deal: I can't fold. Gun to my head, family in jeopardy, the fate of the free world hanging in the balance, I couldn't fold a shirt any better than I could scale a building with my bare hands or make a pass at Jessica Alba without having my skull dislodged from my spine by a bodyguard the size of a Mr. Softee truck. Not helping matters, I tend to get impatient with the whole drying process and end up taking the clothes out while they're still slightly damp and wrinkly. This makes them harder and more unwilling to fold and, when they're jammed none-to-carefully into the laundry bag for the lug home, the wrinkles tend to get permanently ingrained into the fabric.

Once home, I'm left with clothes that are technically cleaner, but still look as though they've been worn for several days by a person who spends a lot of time in mosh pits. This is why Girlfriend doesn't let me wash her stuff. Whereas laundry with most people ends with nice, pleasant-smelling clothes all hung up on hangers and sparkly new for the weeks ahead, laundry with me ends only in apologies and bitter pledges of vengeance.

However, I will voluntarily do the dishes, so it all evens out.