Several weeks ago I made a vow never again to do laundry on a weekend. This came after I spent a Sunday evening in an overloaded laundromat, anxious about machine and folding-area availability, and as I hurriedly ripped wet underwear and sports bras from the washer, I thought: This is what has become of my life? I’m simply consumed by this silent race with a Russian grandmother and a pudgy middle-aged man for the only empty clothes dryer?
Tuesday night should be good, no? No one does laundry on a Tuesday, but for me, it’s the perfect night, free of yoga, French, after-work boozing, and all my other little weeknight commitments.
So I leave work exactly at 5pm and push the speed limit all the way home so I can grab our portable hampers of dirty clothes and head to the spacious, shiny laundromat in the town center. Street parking was ample, and I patted myself on the back for the decision to do laundry on a Tuesday night, because I could park five feet from the front door, and that is how it should be.
I grabbed one of the hampers and walked stiltedly in the door, which was propped open (we’re in the midst of a muggy October heat wave). The laundromat was empty except for two young women sitting on the folding table behind the line of washers that I headed towards, and as I placed the hamper down, the two women turned to each other and kissed passionately.
I turned around and headed back outside for the second hamper. Yes, I was alarmed, if only because at first glance, I had assumed the young women were sisters. They were both of that ambiguous tan-skinned race — Mexican? Filipina? Cuban? Algerian? I can’t say, but they were both of a similar hue of tan, bespectacled, short, and terribly cute. I hauled the second hamper out of the car and headed back inside, where I could not help but notice the kissing had intensified; their bodies were pressed together, their hands were busy, things were happening as I stuffed sullied t-shirts and socks into the silver cylinder of the front-loader washer.
Outside, high-pitched female laughter and shrieking filtered into the laundromat; the girls broke away, turned towards the door, and the taller one said, “How annoying.” But I felt her eyes on me. I invested all my concentration into the task of loading the washers; I poured detergent, I fed quarters, I saw their tongues moving in each other’s cheeks.
I could not shake the suspicion that they were trying to shock me. This made me feel… old. That they thought demonstrative lesbian affection would shock me. Me? Oh, I did wayyy worse than make out with another girl on a laundromat folding table.
Later that night, I told Mr. P how exciting Tuesday nights were at the laundromat. “Two girls, late teens, totally getting it on like I wasn’t even there,” I told him.
“Ooooooh!” he kept saying.
“It was, like, so annoying,” I said.
“Would you have preferred two men?” Mr. P asked.
I considered this, and then answered in all honesty, “No, if two men were kissing as wantonly as these girls, on the freaking laundromat folding table, I probably would have called the police.”
