The Laundromat

Coins clanked down into the metal tray as Marty hurried to scoop them up before they hit
bottom. Silken poison dripped into the plastic dispensing trays, bleach and detergents,
color-safe, unscented, swirling down the shiny aluminum pores of the machine, deeper
into the plumbs of Sherry township at Only Elegance Laundromat. The machines ranged
from mid-grade to oversized but most of them were broken down with a yellow post-it note
over the coin-slot reading “out of order”. An old pinball machine stood off-center with a
wobbly leg in the “lounge” area with a TV that blared propaganda, bad weather, and
occasionally amateur gospel performances littered with painful key-misses that would
make Marty cringe or giggle depending on the mood. Lint wandered the tile floor like
tumbleweed in this, the wild west of metro Detroit, as Ato, the friendly Ghanaian owner
folded dry cleaning orders and smiled up at passersby. But as friendly as Ato was, the
narrow walkways between machine rows, laundry cart landmines and busy moms washing
a family of five and bathroom floor mats made Marty feel better waiting in the car.
From the parking lot Marty could see a woman like a hippopotamus smoking in the alley
way as overgrown icicles melted and crashed into the sidewalk below. A thirty-minute
cycle was really only 26, so she scrolled on her phone watching YouTube until it had
passed and pulled aside a prime laundry cart with the tilt edge for proper tipping and
dumping into dryers and strolled over to her washer. Brown slush slopped around her
favorite sweater sopping wet as she lifted it heavy with disgust.

“Excuse me, I think this washer’s broken” Marty waved up with a limp had towards Ato who
sat contentedly behind his desk. “This one?”, Ato asked, as he moved quite quickly with
screwdriver in hand, “Oh this one, oh no, it seems like the filter is clogged, all this ice in the
machine, we bring you over to this one instead” and a few clicks later, a little more
detergent and bleach down the drain, Marty tried again. Which would have been fine
except now she was going to be late, her work uniform dirty in the center of the machine,
tangled arm and leg in all the dirt of the week. Who works on Saturday anyway? But she
shouldn’t have put it off this late anyhow, as the yellow post it notes on other machines
foretold of this possibility. The mounted TV announced news about the superbowl, the
halftime show, Bad Bunny, Willin Colon, and the climate paradox in Sao Paolo, hundreds
of gallons of dirty water flooding into the Amazon. Marty envied the heat, remembered her
relative luck in the scheme of things, and dreamed of the last day she would ever use the laundromat.