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Dirty Laundry |
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Dirty Laundry |
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This page was developed to help me
keep my sanity doing a chore I dislike. I dislike it even more when it needs to be done in
a laundry mat. For those of you who are a little slow – I’m not talking about
mowing the grass or cooking dinner, I’m talking about washing the stink out of
clothing. I will periodically update you on some of my more interesting washing adventures across the USA. After viewing some open air, outdoor facilities in Florida, I’m ready to invest in disposable fashions. |
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We had an opportunity to practice "laundry mat 101" while we were in Rome, Italy. This was a laundry facility containing washers and dryers, however you were not allowed to operate them. You paid a man and he places your clothing in the machine and inserts the proper amount of coins. Very interesting..... Maybe this will catch on in that outside facility in Ybor City. Can you just picture it - Yo man, Give me $10.00 and I’ll wash your clothing.
Anyway – back to Rome. We pay the man however we were not brave enough to leave our belongings unattended. Keep in mind, he is washing the only cloths we packed for 3 weeks – outside of what we were wearing. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to take a break and document some entries into my journal. Tim was interested in reading some history about the local area – when Tim made the fatal mistake of asking the man washing our possessions – "How long does it take to ride the metro to St. Pauls’ cathedral?"
The next 1½ hours was spent listening to this vocal Italian criticize democracy. He did have some interesting thoughts concerning his view of democracy and the fact that most of it was lip service. And if Americans did not exercise their democratic rights, then we were "shit". He insisted on providing at least 5 different examples for each of his viewpoints. Needless to say, there was not much quiet time during this laundry episode. However – when an excited Italian (in control of all your possessions at this time) continues to exclaim to his employer – "Don’t break my balls!" you let him talk all he wants to about democracy.
I was very happy to see the dryer stop so I could regain control of my underwear and bid farewell to the "Roman Laundry Nazi".
After the mosquito massacre in Flamingo, Florida Everglades, we retreated to Key Largo to clean up the bloodbath. We parked the Rig in a small strip mall, which contained a laundry mat. We arrived early enough to find a man and woman outside talking and a third person inside. We load up the machines and once again attempt to make use of some quiet time.
Tim just opened his reading book and I prepared to write in my journal when this very hairy man approaches us. He was previously sitting outside and I didn’t take much notice to him then, however it was hard to miss him now. His looks probably made him appear older than he was, however I am guessing 68-70 years of age. They say when men get older, hair tends to grow in a lot of places. Well, this man had shoulder length gray hair and a wiry beard that went to the middle of his chest. He was overly friendly and tended to invade that personal space zone – which unfortunately gave me a clear view of more hair. Big bushes protruded from his ears and nose and I’ve never seen hair come out of someone’s lower lip (that is out of the lip - not under) – but there it was.
This man was very interested in our religious beliefs and if we were happily married. Once again, stepping just a bit too close in that personal zone. I quickly immersed myself into my journal and surrendered poor Tim to this odd conversation. The man then introduced himself as Sam – the local preacher. He inquired about Tim’s profession. When he learned Tim worked with computers, he exclaimed how computers were evil and the work of the devil. Think about it – Adam and Eve and the Apple, well, now there are computers named Apple. His thought process was on the track that computers have too much knowledge and power. His argument turned towards knowledge and too much knowledge was evil. I thought to myself, if this guys follows his own beliefs, then he must be a Saint. His knowledge level was entering the depths of negative numbers. Tim for some strange reason continued to debate with Sam the Preacher man. Tim countered the argument by interjecting that if knowledge was evil, then Ben Franklin was evil. Well, Sam the Preacher man didn’t quite know how to come out of this discussion, so thank goodness, he excused himself and left. What a morning, we go from cleaning up the mosquito massacre into philosophizing about evil and Ben Franklin with a hairy old man.
Folks – procreation with farm animals or your sister is not a good idea. Hence, the offspring is Bubba the Alabama Pizza Expert. It’s Tim’s Birthday and he wanted to celebrate with a Pizza from Pizza Hut. We pull off to do some laundry in a small Alabama town, and ask a fellow patron where the closest Pizza Hut is located. He responds: Well now – um, I know there is one near by – but why do you want to eat there? Their Pizza is so expensive. Now, I know where it is. It’s um, hey – I’ll write the directions down. (He pats himself down, then asks) – Do you have any paper. On that queue, Elise goes to the RIG to retrieve some paper and a pencil. She hands it over to Bubba and quickly retreats to the RV. Elise has learned to leave Tim alone with the local wackos as he seems to attract them like a magnet. From the safety of the RV, Elise can see Bubba’s arms pointing to the left and right and is giving Tim some very specific directions. 20 minutes later, Bubba is still pointing to the left and right – looks like we have quite the drive to get to the Pizza Hut. 10 minutes later, Tim escapes from Bubba and produces the complicated directions – go to the next light, turn right and it is on your left. So Tim, what took Bubba 30 minutes to give you these very simple directions. With that, Tim produced Bubba’s map. It was loaded with detail of each business location and landmark along this 2 mile route. Armed with "THE MAP", we go back inside to finish our laundry. Bubba corners Elise and questions her knowledge of Pizza and why I just don’t buy a couple of TOMBSTONE pizzas. But if I do buy some TOMBSTONES, be careful not to buy the fast rising dough. They keep changing the packaging and Bubba doesn’t like the fast rising dough. Now – chicken pot-pies are a good filling meal too. Bubba was ready to give me directions to the local supermarket where you can buy 2 chicken pot-pies for $1.00, when Tim saves me from another 30 minute discussion on directions.
If you ever saw the movie, My Cousin Vinniy, you will recall that the backwoods gas/snack shop where the characters allegedly murdered the clerk, was called the Sack ‘O Suds. Our next laundry experience took place in the "Sack ‘O Suds" in Hew Hampshire. The basement of the snack shop was turned into a make-shift laundry mat – Tim referred to it as the Dungeon. I must admit that it was well stocked with some current reading material, a few 1997 issues of Consumer Reports and Better Investing. And for our reading pleasure, we had a comfortable orange upholstered chair to relax on – never mind those stains. Tim tried to better the experience by shopping for some OREO cookies in the store. He made his way past Jed and Rosco who were buying their Moose Hunting Licenses (no really, they were buying moose hunting licenses), and found the OREOS. Once he blew the dust off the package, he decided that $4.00 for 2 year old cookies, just wasn’t a good deal. I think the only thing fresh in that store was the SKOAL and muddy foot prints.
- for an enlarged view of the "orange chair" click on the photo -
I know you are not used to seeing a quiz in the Dirty Laundry section, however, if you
have been following our adventures, you know that periodically we like to throw in a quiz
or two to keep you on your toes. Here it is:
What is 20 ft X 20 ft, dark and smells like stinky feet?
(D) is a great answer for all of you living in your nice house complete with your own washer and dryer. And if you have a weak stomach, then don’t travel and do your laundry on the road, because the answer is C – the S&S Laundromat. After stepping briefly into this stench hole, we could only figure that that the S&S stood for Small and Scuzzy! To the owners of this nasty, foul place – do the world a favor and take a bulldozer to this dump. For posterity sake, you know we had to take a picture. Because Elise can’t hold her breath for very long – we had to take the picture outside.
- for an enlarged view of the "S&S Laundromat" click on the photo -
Sit down and take a load off, while you do a load:
Of laundry that is... Hanksville, UT, comes complete with 2 gas stations, 2 motels (one displaying welded dinosaurs in the front yard) and one campground/restaurant. The campground was complete with cows and a laundry facility, which was a big improvement from the Small and Scuzzy dump we stopped at earlier. One interesting bit of trivia, the people who left their comfortable orange upholstered chair complete with stains in the New Hampshire laundry mat, forgot their lovely metalic-green velour sofa here in Utah. What is it with nasty, tacky, 70’s style living room furniture ending up in local laundry mats? Worse yet, I’m afraid of walking into one of these places and actually see someone taking a short snooze on this comfortable furniture during the Rinse and Spin cycles. I don’t know. Maybe if we get somewhere to wash my undies and it has a bean bag chair and a lava lamp, I may just have to take them along in the Rig. There are just some things in life that can’t be passed up.
- for an enlarged view of the 70's furinture click on the photo -
