legionnaire

Laundry... the bane of our modern existence. Now I understand why people in colonia times had like 3 outfits total (you know, the black one with the buckle hat, the ruffly collared shirt, etc.) I really can't imagine having to do my laundry by hand. It's too miserable for words.

My building has one washer and one dryer (conveniently located right outside my door.) However, the dryer has been broken since the end of October. And given the approximately 12 square feet of total open space in my lovely New York city apartment, I don't really have room to air dry. I managed to make it through much of November on my strategic reserves of socks, boxers and t-shirts. Then my grandfather went into the hospital so I had to go to Pennsylvania. Brought my laundry home with me and had a temporary reprieve. Thanksgiving gave me another little boost. Though I must say, my pride is diminishing with each load of laundry I take on the train. I mean, I lived 3000 miles from my parents for 6 years, and used to make fun of people who took their laundry home on weekends (one guy used to freaking Fedex his laundry to his parents. He needs to die. Slowly.) Now I'm 26 years old and all of those people probably hire someone to do their laundry for them, and I'm carting mine to my parent's whenever I go there. Pathetic.

So tonight I decided enough was enough. I would find a laundromat and just take my laundry there. What the hell, I used to do it all the time when I lived in Oakland, it was actually kind of fun, you ended up having this weird sort of bonding experience with all of the other miserable, poor losers who were stuck there (usually really late at night) as you folded your laundry side by side with them.

I remembered seeing several laundromats within 5 or 6 blocks of my apartment. So I packed up my laundry into my basket, got my liquid Tide (now with colorsafe bleach!) and boldly walked out into the night. My first inkling that something was rotten in Denmark came when the laundromat I had targeted because it was the biggest was not, in fact, lit up, but instead had a rather uninviting metal grate in front of it and was dark. Closed. Of course, being a good self-centered New Yorker, I didn't decide to leave the apartment until 11pm, and then just assumed that every business would remain open to suit my schedule. Hell, the laundromat in West Oakland I used to go to was open 24/7. No such luck in the West Village, apparently. I walked to 4 different laundromats, while the cold wind blew my clothes into the middle of 7th avenue, into grey, cold, puddles on the side of the road, and past yuppies looking at me with that combination of disdain and amusement that only someone whose last name ends in "-ton" (followed by some roman numeral) can manage to pull off.

Back to my crappy building, cold, unhappy and with my clothes actually dirtier than when I had originally set off, I decided to take the plunge and wash them anyway and try to get them to air dry. We'll see how this works out, I'm ancitipating smelling like mildew for the next few months.

On a completely unrelated note, I've come to the conclusion, probably 15 years too late, that Billy Idol rocks.

Until tomorrow....