Laundromat - part 2

I thought I'd be back earlier to finish telling how it is for me doing my wash at the laundromat but sometimes life gets busy and well, honestly, sometimes I just get too lazy and then it also seemed so non-important. This time it was a mixture of all three.

I've spent a good part of the last month recording a sci-fi audio book. I've done it before but have never found it to be as arduous as this particular book. Not only is it Sci-Fi, but hard-core Sci-Fi, so lots of technical terms, lots of explaining how things work, and what they are for. I found it hard to read and many times my tongue would get twisted with words such as names of antibiotics such as like flucloxacillin and nitroimidazole and metronidazole, and those were all in the same sentence. Besides making the editing a long process, it also made it not the most fun to read. I had started to record in December, and now am finally done.

In between all of this, Japan had a major earthquake. I woke up that Friday morning to the news about the giant quake and how a tsunami was due to hit Hawaii in the following 20 minutes. I have a friend that lives in Hawaii, exactly where they were saying it would hit. I was devastated. The first thing I did was burst out crying. When you hear something like this, your heart breaks first before your mind comes around to remind you that they had plenty of warning and do not take such warnings trivially. Obviously, she was not online, they had to leave home for higher ground. I watched the news directly from Hawaii online, refreshing every few minutes. Finally they did not get the waves that were expected and most of the damage was to Maui and mostly to some piers. No people were hurt. Great Relief.

After the quake and the subsequent tsunami hit, I was stunned and coming here to write about the laundromat seemed so trivial; so not important at all. So what am I doing here and why am I writing it afterall? Well, I figure that major events will always overshadow the mundane bits of everyday life. That doesn't mean that everyday life cannot be interesting. People watch reality shows because they want to see life through someone's else experiences. They want to compare their lives with those of others. When I go to the laundromat, I compare who I am and my life with the people that go there.

As I said, in my previous post. I decided that since I couldn't yet afford a new washer and I'm due for a new dryer also, as the one I have, has a defective timer, that I would do my wash, once a week at the laundromat. I have found one great advantage of doing my wash there; I can use 3-4 machines at once and within an 1 1/2 be done with it all for the entire week. How about them apples?

I also am curious about the people. Most of the people that wash their clothing there are Native-Americans. They are mostly quiet and go about their chores and smile and are polite. There is a student that is a regular. He's mostly there on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. While the clothes twist and spin, he reads a book and doesn't make a peep. Once dry, he simply stuffs them all in a big bag, without folding them and leaves.

Then there are 3 regulars (non-native) that always seem to be hanging around and never seem to have any wash to do. The second time I did my laundry there, one of them comes up to me and asks to see my Kobo (my ebook reader). Once he sees that I'm reading in English, he's like oh, I can't read English, never learned etc., He was missing several teeth I think, although I really couldn't see in his mouth, but I was having a really hard time understanding him. I live in a town where you need to speak and understand French or you will find it difficult to get any service, anywhere. But here, all the words seemed muffled. I felt bad asking him to repeat, but I couldn't understand most of what he was saying, until, he got mad and starting yelling about his lottery tickets and how he hasn't won yet and then he started to swear in French, Crisse de tabernac, je gagne pas, et Hostie, j'ai des projects, Crisse! (Basically, swearing that he hadn't won anything with his lottery tickets and that he had all these huge projects and how was he going to do them if he didn't win). I understood all that, but was feeling quite intimidated and just nudged my shoulders up and down a few times as if I didn't understand what he was saying and he finally decided I wasn't worth the trouble to talk to and left in a huff.

Now, this guy and another always seem to be there when I do my laundry. It doesn't seem to matter if it is Tuesday or Saturday, or Wednesday. They are never there the entire time, but always pop in to scratch lottery tickets. They both are not very clean-looking and seem to spend every nickle and dime they have on these tickets. Obviously, once in a while they win something, but mostly it is free tickets, or money to buy more tickets. They sit at the tables that are meant for folding clothes, and scratch away. I've seen them come in with cans they have picked off the street and in garbage bins, and wash them in the sink, to bring into the dépanneur (convenience store) to get enough money to buy one more ticket. It is sad. I do understand that it is a sickness, but it is still sad.

Then there is a woman that is also always there. She looks homeless but apparently is not, but is indeed poor. She's also not quite right in the head. She talks a lot. The first time I saw her, she talked to me non-stop even though I tried to bury my head in my ebook. I try to be polite, but she's telling me personal stuff about her life. I'm not talking about someone saying "Hi, my name is and I live around the corner, I'm a writer or an accountant etc., .. no, this is more along the lines of my neighbor slept with this guy and I told her she's an idiot and then she starts getting anxious and talking about her ex and how she kicked him out and about money and it just goes on and on. Now, people can tell me things, and not much surprises me anymore because humans are well, human. We are flawed and we can be good and bad all in one person. But when someone, you've never met in your life comes up and starts giving you intimate details about their life, it makes me put up an invisible line in front of me as a barrier. I smile and point to my kobo and how I've hoped to read and she leaves me alone. Sort of. Every week, I come and she's telling anyone that is there, the same stories, over and over. They never change and she always gets anxious at certain parts. There are moments I want to hug her, like a child and say.. shhh... it will be alright.. Calm, baby, calm. And then there are moments, I want to throttle her and say, please, for the love of god, shut ... up! See, told you we are all flawed. I do feel bad for her though, as I see she doesn't spend her little bit of money on lottery tickets or booze. When she has some, she buys herself something to eat. I do not have a lot of money, but I certainly am not in the same situation as she is. She's a bit hyper and always searching to talk to someone and tell them her story, so she tends to go outside and back in and then into the convenience store to see if there is anyone there she can tell her story to. Sometimes, while she's out, I "forget" a 2 dollar coin near where she's sitting, so that she'll get herself a hot soup and not feel like she's a charity case. I think the hardest thing about having little money is the sense of losing your pride and having to ask people to help you out. She's never asked for money and I try to make it so she just thinks she's been lucky that day. Makes me think of a Quebecois movie "Seducing Dr. Lewis" (La grande séduction) where they leave 5 dollar bills on the ground for the doctor to find, so that he feels very lucky. I do not, however, do the same with the 2 men, as I know it will simply go to another ticket and nothing more.

Each time I go, it is very different. Wednesday evening, this week, it was very quiet. The lady was there, talking about the same things as usual but nothing much happened. Someone left and forgot a bag of items and had forgotten them there. I brought them to the cash and let them know in case he came back. When I was leaving, he was just returning to see if his bag was still there. He seemed relieved that they were with the cashier and that nobody had left with them. The week before, there was trouble, but not at the laundromat, but inside the convenience store. I was alone in the laundromat (actually the very first time that had happened) and I heard some very loud shouting going on. At first I thought it was kids outside, but it turned out it was in the store. 3 guys, 2 natives and a white man and (it's the lady from the store that told me what had gone on) but two of them came in, then a 3rd came in and accused one of them of stealing his money and then a couple of bottles of beer ended up on the ground crushed and there was loud yelling. The police were called in and they all took off. This is the same lady that had made a couple of drunks leave the very first time I went to do wash. She told me that usually she's fine, but that today, she'd really been frightened. Poor her, and it was her birthday to boot.

So, there you go, that's been my laundromat adventures so far. I promise, next time to talk about something else! :-)

Before I leave, I leave you with an image I played around with today. When I was in Sweden, I had knit a scarf for Janne. He proudly modeled it and then for fun, started posing as a boxer. Heh. I knew one day I would want to play around with the image and today I did. At first I only wanted to play up the way he lifted his eyebrow only on one side, and make it more surreal but then I was tempted to give him a black eye as the other eye was almost all closed. I figured, hey, he's been in a fight, he should have a bleeding nose.. and maybe a bit of blood coming from his mouth. Then I didn't want him to look like a victim, so he needed blood on his hands because for sure, the other guy got it good too. It ended up pretty bad with blood smears all over the place, but we had a good laugh about it and I thought I would share it here.. Enjoy!