Washateria

There is one thing most grown-ups can all agree to join hands and hate together: the motherfucking laundry.  No, this isn’t another mommy blog post about hating on laundry.  I get it.  You guys get it.  Laundry blows.  And it never ends.  But I have a confession to make: I’m having a new love affair with laundry.

I'm not a traitor.  Hear me out.

Laundry hook-ups were at the top of our MUST HAVE list while looking for a new place to live.  As the searching got harder, we started to compromise until of course, we ended up in a place with no laundry hook-ups.  There is a laundry room here, but it’s a bit of a walk to get to.  That might work if I wasn’t disabled, but there is no way I can haul several loads of laundry on foot across the complex.  I did try once.  Partly to humor myself (and probably the neighbors) and partly to see how far I could push my body.  We don’t need to work for NASA to take an educated guess as to how that went.  There was a lot of pain, tripping over cracks on sidewalks, dropped items, and weeping on the couch.  But hey, the laundry was clean.

I noticed a few Laundromats not too far from home.  Most were creepy looking, and the thought of driving our whole family’s filthy threads across town was just no.  NO.  But over the past few months the sign over one kept making me giggle.

WASHATERIA.

When I first sat down to write this, I thought it was a made-up Spanglish word.  I didn’t know it’s an actual word.  Well, it is a made-up Spanglish word but it was made up back in 1930s Texas and the word caught on so now it’s a word.  So there. Wiki hath spoken.  It makes me giggle nonetheless like the time my mother and I encountered an old Hispanic woman cleaning a public restroom, and she said we had to wait.  Her reason: “Estoy vacuumando.”  She just invented a word using an English noun and a Spanish conjugation and figured that we, being Hispanic, would know what she was talking about.  We did. 

My first trip to the Washateria was alright.  The place is impeccably clean, which I admit I didn’t expect considering it is in a creepier part of the neighborhood.  The washers were huge and the dryers were free!  I got more done in half the time and saved money.  I was sore, but not knocked on my ass. 

This is totally a word, guys.

I went back the following week.  This time I had a game plan.  I knew when and how to swoop in on one of those coveted baskets with the wheels on it.  Those things are like gold.  I learned to stake my claim on one before the old ladies swiped them all.  I had my coin purse.  I had my coffee.  This time, I noticed the smell of bacon.  People often bring food along to eat while they’re waiting for their clothes so I didn’t think much of it.  Over an hour went by, and the smell hadn’t diminished.  Then I noticed a little snack bar in the back where they sell popsicles, fruit juices and apparently, BACON.

Does your laundry room do that?  I think not!  If you do laundry in the comfort of your home, you have to cook bacon yourself! Or worse! You have to suck up to someone else, probably your husband or wife or asshole brother, and get them to cook it for you.  Not at the Washateria. 

This is where the magic happens.

When the family hears, “I have to go do laundry,” they run for the fucking hills.  And I pretend to be disappointed.  I guess I’ll have to sit alone, with my Kindle, reading in peace, eating bacon, unbothered because my family isn’t there. 

The Washateria is the most unlikely of all happy places, which is precisely why it is awesome.  Shh…our families don’t need to know that.

***Update:  MY COVER’S BEEN BLOWN!  Shortly after writing this, my husband decided he should go with me, you know, to be helpful on account of me being crippled and all.  And you won’t believe this – yeah, yeah, he was super helpful blah blah blah – but they didn’t have any bacon on that day!  I swear this is a true story.  He did have the decency to bring his tablet so we could ignore each other like decent people.  But still.  Operation: This Is My Side This Is Your Side in full effect.