Until this weekend I have not graced a laundromat since my college days, which is slightly longer ago than I would like to admit…
To be honest, I was actually looking forward to reliving the experience. I envisioned loading my van, filling up a row of washers, and grabbing a coffee from the shop down the street while my clothes and sheets went for a spin.
I dreamed of waltzing through the door and seeing a handful of younger-than-me hipsters and lumbersexuals. And the best part of my dream — they would actually see me as one of them. They wouldn’t notice our decade age difference and I would innocently flirt with one of them about the trials of not owning a washer/dryer. One of them that hopefully looked like this guy with his sexy man bun.
Unfortunately, that did not happen. It turns out real-life laundromats are not at all like the ones on a college campus or featured in reruns of Sex and the City.
First off, the prices. I mean, come on! $2.50 just to wash a load. My two sets of sheets, and three days-worth of towels took up FIVE washing machines. That alone is like a week’s worth of my high school salary when I worked at Hardee’s for $4.15/hour.
I hate to sound like a downer. I guess I was grateful there were enough machines open that I didn’t need to use the one COVERED in animal hair.
Until I realized the machine housing my comforter must have been used by the same previous party and only came out of the ordeal slightly less scathed. Apparently the best place to wash your clothing is the laundromat if you live with a pack of dogs or a family of yetis.
In the end, the place didn’t have WiFi, the bathroom was terrifying, I left twenty dollars poorer, and there were no sexy man buns.
The real cherry on the top came later that afternoon when I went to make my bed with newly clean sheets, surprisingly free of yeti hair. Folded in my fitted sheet (because who even knows how to fold one of those properly anyway?) was a very warn pair of men’s bikini underwear. Totally awesome.
Landry: the bane of every mother’s existence. Laundromats: every mother’s hell on earth…unless there are clean washers, sparkling bathrooms, WiFi, and sexy man buns.
Photo credit: Whitney Barthel, iStock
