DeadpanAnn (old blogger version)

Nothing beats the heat like sitting in a giant room with fifty running clothes dryers and as many Mexicans for half an hour. That's exactly what I just got done doing.

The other day when the hallway flooded, I had managed to do four loads of laundry before it backed up. So today I figured I should be able to get one measley load done without a problem, right? Wrong! I just wanted to make sure everything would be clean before we leave tomorrow morning, but I ended up flooding the hallway again. My entire floor is going to have to be replaced, and I hope TH knows this is going to require filing a claim with our homeowner's insurance. Judging by the fact that the ceiling fans on our front porch are still broken from Katrina because he didn't bother calling the insurance company back and pointing out that they didn't pay for them with the claim check, I have a feeling he won't want to file a claim for this either. Anyway, since I had a full load of soapy clothes, plus a huge load of dirty towels that had been used to sop up Lake Disaster for the third day in a row, I had no choice-- I had to go to the laundromat.

When we got there, it was like a scene from a western movie when an outsider walks into the bar. The music stops and everyone looks at the intruder. Yep. We're white, and we're at the laundromat. Get back to la ropa. Vamanos! I didn't say that, but if it had been a movie I might've. You know, if it was a bad movie. And it was also stupid. And a little racist.

Let's move on.

My one and only memory of using a laundromat is not a pleasant one. From what I remembered from my first experience, most of the washers were broken, half of them would steal your quarters, and the one I found that would actually work was so filthy that nothing seemed clean when it came out. Nothing says rainwater fresh like washing your underwear in the same tub that has been forced to choke down a million jizz and sh*t stains from random people's bedsheets.

This place wasn't bad. I mean, it wasn't great, but it wasn't bad. The washers were all working, and nothing smelled bad or had more than the standard quarter inch of scuzz caked on it. A nice Mexican dude gave me his chair, and I later surrendered it to a pregnant lady, so I spent most of the time leaning on the wall, which was sticky for some reason that I don't want to know. (I was hoping it had something to do with the nine thousand half empty cans of Raspberry Fanta that were lined up along the window sills.) Thankfully the dryer here still works, so I only had to wash them there. We brought the stuff back here and it's drying now.

The kids were pretty good right up to the last minute, when their Leapsters ceased to entertain them and they started asking for change for the video game. Actually, it wasn't even a video game. It was one of those rip off machines that has the hook dangling that you're supposed to use to fish out a stuffed animal, so needless to say I was a little reluctant to keep giving them quarters for it. The young one was supremely disappointed that she didn't get a toy from that thing, and I was lucky that the clothes finished washing right about the time she started gearing up to go apesh*t. I tossed my wet panties back into the basket, rounded up the young 'uns, and got the hell out of there.

We rewarded ourselves with Sonic ice cream cones on the way home.