Do not open door until machine stops

Another Friday night, another adventure at the laundromat, with the woman in the fur hat scrounging through the trash retrieving crumpled lottery tickets, the telenovelas blaring above the whirr of the washers and dryers, the little boy racing back and forth between the lollipop machine and his family.

Our clothes and sheets and cloth napkins that at this moment may not be that good for the environment are spinning in six 40-lb. capacity machines. The beauty of arriving at the laundromat at 10pm on a Friday is that you have the whole row of jumbo machines to yourself, and everything seems to have just been tidied.

The pollo place adjacent to the laundromat is still open, although you’re full of slow cooker shredded beef tacos which were an experiment and you thought at first a failed one but they turned out all right and your husband and even your daughter cleaned their plates and declared the tacos delicious.

Perhaps tonight when you get home you will go online and order a new washer and dryer, since the repairman declared your dryer unsalvageable after four visits to your house with two sets of replacement parts. The washer works fine but they are part of one unit so must both be replaced, yet another appliance inconvenience you never considered when you bought the condo a decade ago. It turns out there are only a handful of washer dryer models that will fit into your laundry closet. But at least you have a Home Depot credit card and the promise of six months of interest-free financing. There’s always that.

And you are thankful that your husband is home keeping the kids in bed so you don’t have to chase children here, just sit and watch the laundry spin. And you are thankful that it’s a new year and mechanical inconveniences are just that, and that you have a loving family and a roof over your head and you can plan summer vacations and really you are surrounded by everything you could want. Even though washer 78 is making a terrible racket right now, it’s probably just your son’s overalls, which are very cute if somewhat impractical.

And hey, you found a quarter in washer 76 after you put that load in the dryer. Maybe it was your quarter to begin with, but either way it’s your lucky day.