Laundry Mat Memories

I’m at the laundry mat right now washing some quilts in those big huge machines. I love those things. They spin around and make these whirring sounds like some kind of cool carnival ride. If you put a plastic action figure in there, it will spin around like it’s being sucked into some vortex – you can see the blur of it through the glass door and imagine how dizzy the guy is getting.

I have some good memories of laundry mats – and some bad ones. The good ones involve being there, running around pushing each other in the wet-clothes rolling carts. We did laps around the washing machines in the middle, taking corners on two wheels, listening to the old folks complain about the “out-of-control kids these days.”

The bad memories involve getting to the laundry mat. For some reason my brother and I were given the responsibility of doing laundry. Like everyone else in our neighborhood, our family had one car, and my dad worked a couple of states away so he only came home about once a month, leaving us without a vehicle. Which was fine since the grocery store, school, church and everything else was within a couple of blocks.

But the laundry mat was about six blocks away, and we had to carry the laundry basket full of clothes – one of us on each side. It’s hard to imagine entrusting us to do the laundry - we just piled everything in the machines, bought those boxes of detergent, and let it rip. I guess colors didn’t run back then.

I kindof liked going to the laundry mat, but my brother was in middle school and it was NOT cool to be carrying a laundry basket piled high with clothes down the street, especially with your little sister. We’d wait until there were no clean clothes anywhere before we went, so the basket had clothes mounded about two feet above it, held in place by a sheet draped over it all and tucked into the sides. It looked like we were carrying a fresh grave.

In those days kids got to go anywhere, day or night. Maybe it was safe in our little East Tennessee town. People didn’t lock their doors, or their cars, and crime was unheard of. Perhaps it was going on in the big cities, but we didn’t hear about it. So my brother and I waited until after dark to make the trip.

We’d carry the basket between us and head down the street. Whenever we saw a car coming in the distance, we’d drop the basket on the sidewalk and fly behind a bush so we wouldn’t be seen. I am laughing as I type this because now I can see that basket from an adult driver’s perspective. What did people think when their headlights shown on a big laundry basket sitting on the sidewalk all by itself? Did they see us dive into the bushes and figure out what we were up to?

My brother was pretty popular in school. Girls called him all the time. His reputation would have been absolutely ruined if any of those cars contained people he knew who would rat him out the next day at school. But we were crafty, and it never happened. When it came time to cross the busy, four-lane street, we lurked in the shadows until it was clear both ways for a good distance, then we’d run like crazy across. Since I was younger, I didn’t run as fast, so the basket would get askew and sometimes tip over. Laundry gushed out onto the center of the street in a ragged trail. We scrambled to get it back into the basket. My brother would dart his head back and forth, not worried about getting run over – that might have been his choice under the circumstances – but worried he’d be seen in the street with his little sister and girly clothes.

Once the clothes were washed, we’d grab the sheets and fold them. We’d take the four corners and fold the sheet in half. Then we take a couple of giant steps toward each other like we were dancing at some fancy ball. We’d connect the corners, I’d pick up the corners at the fold, and we’d step apart, then move back together with the same flouncing steps. It was just silly foolishness to entertain ourselves, and we giggled like idiots. People must have thought we were nuts. Funny how we were so worried about what they thought on the dark street, but we didn’t care a bit what the crowd of people in the laundry mat were thinking.

We loaded up those folded clothes and started the trek back home. Usually there was less traffic, but we’d still have to abandon the basket and take cover several times. I wonder why no one ever stopped to see why a laundry basket full of folded clothes was sitting there. I think if I had been an adult driving, I’d want to investigate. But those were innocent times. Maybe they thought that basket had a darn good reason being there and it was none of their business why. No thugs or gangs or opportunists were cruising around looking to steal people’s clothes.

Somehow we managed to do this chore week after week completely on the sly. We finally got a washing machine and our laundry mat days were over, which didn’t upset either of us one bit.

I see that my blankets have finished spinning in those giant dryers – they look just like the ones we climbed in when we were little. The laundry mat back then was full of people. You had to wait sometimes to get a washer, especially on weekends. We preferred weeknights – less traffic. Since I’ve been here for over an hour, I’ve only seen three people. I’m surprised there are that many - it’s hard to imagine houses and apartments without washers.

So thus ends my walk down memory lane. If you ever see a laundry basket beside the road full of clothes, you’ll probably find some kids in the bushes close by.