the laundromat - a longer entry...

there is something intrinsically attractive to me about doing laundry at a laundromat. i can identify two themes: 1) the big-city connection -- people who live in big cities i feel are often to be found at laundromats; whether or not this is actually true, i have no idea, but i feel like it is, and 2) the blue collar/working class ethic i have found myself generally sympathetic toward (although not actively in pursuit of), since late high school. i need to get change for my $5 bill, i need to buy a single-serving box of degergent, i need to stay in one place while my clothes wash and dry. i bring a book. i bring an ipod. i bring a second book in case the first is boring. i wear gloves and a beanie. i think i will spend the time engrossed in tolstoy, the rhythmic humming and churning helping me to focus by providing white noise. i see myself, in all my low-income glory, sweating it out with the masses, so that i can wear clean clothes and not smell like an ass after the show tonight. this is how i see it panning out, but of course it doesn't happen this way. it's even better than i imagined...

here is what actually happened:

before i could load my clothes into two separate washers (i had a quite a heavy load, especially including a few jackets and pants and shirts that weren't even dirty but just needed to be shrunk in order to maintain the fashion status quo of playing in a rock band), i had to get change. as i walk up to the change machine, i notice three little boys following me (ages 2, 3, and 5 i later learned), engrossed in the put-paper-in-get-metal-out transaction. so i let the middle one help me put the dollars in, and the oldest gets the quarters. at the end of this, i go put my clothes in, and sit down to start reading anna karenina (see, i'm doing good!). before i read two lines, the middle boy walks up and stares at me inquisitively -- this is a common look i receive from children, partially because children are more inquisitive than adults, but also i think partially because i have a pretty fierce beard, which either inspires fear or, like in this case, curiosity. since i am sitting across from 6 of those quarter-vending machines for children, i anticipate what might be coming.

"i got a yellow bear", he says, in reference to the vending machine that dispenses rubber bears, good for nothing that i can think of other than bear-ness or rubber-ness.

"would you like to get another bear?" i ask. yes, he would. and yes, so would his younger and older sibling. i have plenty of quarters, so no big deal. this giving, however, leads to increased time with the boys, including them showing me how to throw the bears and bounce them off walls and the floor, me learning their names -- chase, alex, and quentin, which took chase saying "quentin" about 12 times before i understood him -- and giving hi-fives. about 5 minutes later, another socially adept 4-year old, fernando, joined the party. fernando was even cuter than the caucasian boys, and spoke english, but the combination of being a little kid and his accent made it almost impossible for me to understand anything he said. this, however, did not stop me from giving HIM a quarter as well, which he chose to spend playing a shoot-em-up arcade game. the only problem, of course, was that he was far too short to even see the screen, so i had to hold him a foot and a half in the air as he fumbled with the controls -- the sweet relief of "game over" did not tarry, and the game only lasted about two minutes. he asked for another game, but i tactfully told him he should ask his mother, who said no.

the rest of the time was spent watching fernando throw his jacket into the air and catch it, then to his great delight joining him and throwing it for him, on him, on mikey, on anyone around, and putting part of my hair into a pony tail with a rubber band that fernando gave me. not the kind of day at the laundromat that i was expecting, but probably more rewarding, right? i brought pictures:

the three boys:


fernando:



grateful to be alive,
dan