Laundry

Sometimes weird things happen at the laundry mat.

One time these guys came in, drank a couple of beers, were generally loud and disruptive, and then left. Clearly the laundry mat doubles as a bar.

There are eight washing machines at the laundry mat. Five small machines (normal sized, really), one medium, and two industrial sized washers. Sometime before December vacation I was using the medium and one of the small washers. I was the only person in there. A couple came in with a baby and a few suitcases full of laundry when my loads were about halfway done. They sat down, and they just sat there and didn't do anything. I kind of looked over at them, they looked over at me, it was awkward, and they just kept sitting there and occasionally looking at the machines and then me. I eventually thought that maybe they were waiting for the medium sized washer to be available, but as I already said, the other washers were totally free and they could easily have used one of the six available washers. My laundry eventually finished, I emptied my washer and took my stuff over to the dryer. The woman started filling up the medium sized washer. Not all of their clothes fit in it. Did she put them in another washer? No. She took the rest of the laundry back to her chair and sat down again. Apparently the only acceptable washer was the medium sized washer, and she refused to use any of the other ones. Talk about a waste of an afternoon!

Then today when I got back to the laundry mat to transfer my clothes from the washer to the dryer there was another woman in there eating take out from Quick Burger. I was about to say 'bonjour' but she turned her back to me really quickly and refused to look at me while she was eating her burger. Was she embarrassed to be eating in public? Did she think I was going to think badly of her for eating a Quick Burger at the laundry mat? I kind of wanted to say 'there's no need to be embarrassed Madame, I'm an American, I don't care if you are eating standing up at the laundry mat outside of normal lunch hours. I don't judge people for offenses like that.' But I didn't, because I decided that would be super weird and she would probably judge me for not judging her.