The Laundry Mat

There were many things I could not understand regardless of how many times I broke them down, categorized them, and filed them in appropriate chronological order. I had graphs and charts to explain, predict and justify, yet I still spent most my time obsessing. There must have been a glitch in the computers of my head that kept me from smoothly running through the days. However, there were still daily tasks to perform and places I had to physically go despite my obvious insanity. One was the laundry mat where daily life played out in front of me, like little windows into people’s lives.
I sat and watched them run their clothes through the cycles. The types of people depended on the day and time. It was about seven p.m., which meant young families with small children, when I arrived with my baskets of soiled linen. Two little Latino children fought over a rubber ball, sucking on lollipops, saliva streaming down the sides of their chins as they dug their little nails into the rubber. The girl was about two years old and her mother had made one of those heinous pony tails on the top of the poor child’s head with what little hair she had. She looked less like a baby girl and more like plastic toy trolls. Her plump little sausage wrist adorned with a gold bracelet name plate. Her brother wore the traditional gold cross around his thin neck on the outside of his stained sleeveless shirt. They both wore tennis shoes with smiling cartoon characters with door-knob eyes.
I found two empty machines and sorted my clothes making sure no darks slipped in with the lights, and visa versa. The rhythm of the humming machines, random squeals of the plump baby and the TV screaming, made me feel at home. Not the “felt at home” where I’m comforted and relaxed but the kind of feeling I got when I was teenager. Some machine would always be on; vacuum cleaner, washing machine, dish washer, the fan above the stove, all of it on at one time or another. Or all at the same time. The kids would be running in and out of the house, up and down the stairs, slamming doors, crying and screaming at one another. The T.V. would be playing some kind of cartoon video but no one would be in the living room, and despite the fact my mother turned it off every time she walked by, it still managed to come right soon after her legs had swung by.
There was always so much to do, to clean, to prepare or fix. There was dinner to cook, and food to buy and bills to pay, and baths to take and toilets to clean, and kids to pick up from practice and skinned knees and diapers. Always lots and lots of diapers, wipes, baby powder, bottles with melted nipples from falling to the bottom of the dishwasher and burning on the iron rods that heat the water. I always got into trouble for this since the dishes were my chore and I was told over and over to make sure the nipples were securely placed in the silver wear trey and if I wasn’t willing to do this then I was to wash them by hand. Unfortunately I wasn’t willing to do either-- so they melted.
This was what the laundry mat brought back for me; back to the chaos of living in a family of seven lives. Only two sets of eyes to monitor fifty fingers, ten hands, five mouths, four girls and one boy. It ended every night and began every morning with a very deep breath, but why my mother and step-father didn’t drown us one by one in the bath was a mystery to me.