Late shift today which means I can get down the launderette and do me washing. Dark stuff today. I'm on an early tomorrow so I'll do me whites in the afternoon. The bachelor life is a non stop cavalcade of fun.
I used to pop for a fried brekkie and a paper during the spin cycle but it was always a bit of a rush so indigestion and budget have curtailed that. A short walk, giving the headspace a bit of a clean too is good. If I'm with No2 son we'll go to a nearby square and scare each other from behind trees and generally chase each other to and fro. Getting back just in time to put everything in the dryer.
I wrote in an earlier blog about the loneliness of a washing machine. The launderette is a place where people are lonely together. I've got my headphones on, the other two men here - one older, one younger - are reading their papers. The older man's other half helps him unload his machine - sometimes the reason to be here is practical: no washer at home. But sometimes you recognise a deeper solitude that goes beyond having to lug your smalls down the road. 'I hate this,' said the man packing up as I arrived. Ostensibly he was covering his male pride - he looked like he'd be more at home holding court at his local rather than doing the washing. But I suspect he was referring to more, perhaps the circumstances that brought him here. Or maybe I'm just projecting...
Pause to transfer to dryer.
Today there was drama, mind. Cheapskate that I am, I tried to shove as much as I could into one machine. I put in the powder and inserted the token to start the machine. It wouldn't go through! Each time I tried I had to press the reject button and retrieve the token. Could there be a cut out if the drum were overloaded? Even with that thought in my head I transferred my clothes to the next machine. Shame to waste the powder - I couldn't see a cup or scoop to recover it - but as I was pushing my luck I wasn't too bothered. More powder, token in, this machine burst into life.
Then promptly stopped with a clunk. All the lights went out. Arrgh!
Sheepishly, I went upstairs and confessed my crime. The woman on duty looked at me dubiously when I chucked in the word 'overload' - a term I more readily associated with destroying evil computers through logical paradoxes or the irrationality of love. She went into the service room behind the washers to investigate.
'There's a leak,' she declared. 'Put your washing in the next machine.' As a concilatory gesture I left out a pair of jeans and a shirt that wouldn't tumble anyhoo.
Bit of luck - I've already got some powder in that one! But the leak - had it already been there, or had I brought it about? Much like the chaos and uncertainty of the clothes now tumbling before me, the exact sequence of events is impossible to know.
Just better not bring as many whites tomorrow.
More soonliest.
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