Of Laundromats & Shopping Carts

I was going to write a blog about how there is something inherently sad about Laundromats, about seeing little girl’s pink sock stuck to the top of the dryer you’re about to use. Such thoughts were swirling around my mind the other night as I was washing my clothes in public for the first time in nearly 5 years. I guess I was extrapolating my situation (of recently losing a terrific woman and a washer/dryer facility). But all around me seemed divorced, widowed, or perpetually single.

And that might have been the case . . . but doubtful. In congested metropolitan areas there is bound to be a percentage of the population who cannot do their laundry within their building. It’s actually very normal.

Except when you’re used to cleaning your socks and underwear in the privacy of your own home, a Laundromat can be a bizarre place. There’s the bright florescent lights, the industrial sound of machines running, and a group of people staring zombie-like at the tumbling dryers.

But there is something a bit odder. Picture if you will a college educated man in his 30’s pushing a shopping cart full of dirty clothes up the street. And then imagine this unfortunate person navigating this rickety carriage past multi-million dollar homes.

This really happened.

Buzzed from drinking beers and watching The Patriots beat The Cowboys, I came back to my apartment and suddenly realized I had no clean clothes to wear to work. Something had to be done. But I’d yet to do laundry since I moved to my new apartment, and I wasn’t quite sure where to go. Sans car, I knew I was in for a challenge.

I remembered passing a Laundromat somewhere nearby, so I gathered up all my dirty clothes and went outside for the journey. But something was very wrong. The laundry basket was exceeding heavy, and in the cool of the night I got to the end of the street and realized this was a huge mistake. I desperately needed clean clothes, but there was just no way to make the walk to the Laundromat (which, unbeknownst by me at the time, was about a mile away).

And that’s when I saw the shopping cart.

In urban areas shopping carts are not exotic items. Homeless people use them to transport their belongings, the elderly bypass the supermarket boundaries and push their groceries home with them, and punk kids boost them for joyrides. But as stated, I live in a very upscale neighborhood (for fluky reasons- there is nothing upscale about me). There are no bums, old people can afford to pay for cabs to deliver their groceries, and the kids are too busy with their soccer, lacrosse, or karate practices to steal shopping carts.

But there it was. Right at the end of the street, almost as if the laundry gods placed it there for me. And since I was buzzed from the football beverages and my basket was so heavy, I took it. I placed all my dirty clothes inside and made a terrible racket pushing the cart to the Laundromat. Clang, clang, clang I went and disturbed the peacefulness of the posh neighborhood.

Going there I was more embarrassed than anything. I felt guilty for taking somebody’s cart (even though it had a supermarket logo printed on it), and very low class for pushing it. But once at my destination I hid it off to the side because I knew I would need it return.

And I did use it again once I was finished washing and drying. But now I saw this whole situation as hilarious. I couldn’t help but smirk when a few people walking their dogs crossed to the other side of the street as I crashed on by. In the dark they must have thought I was an errant bum. So I laughed, and probably frightened them even more. When I got back to my block I left it exactly where I had found it.

And then it put everything in perspective. If you think hard enough, just about anything can be inherently sad. But if you are just trying to accomplish routine tasks, there is nothing dolorous about them. In fact, if you keep your sense of humor you might even have a good time.