Thursday, December 09, 2010

Laundry Is My Kryptonite

I KNEW it! I knew it would happen! I just had a feeling that if I got this other blog [stillonthewheel] off the ground, somehow it would leak over into FTM and another post would soon come. And that's exactly what happened!

I'll skip the grand entrance and cut right to the chase, lest I get distracted and another three years of silence takes place before the next FTM writing comes out...

One of my favorite AGA-related moments came a few years ago, when my good friend and co-worker Dave Hunter witness me fall out of a restaurant onto the sidewalk of Smith Street in downtown Brooklyn. We'd been friends for a while and he'd heard his fair share of Amy stories [in fact, he played a major role in Episode XXIII: My Kingdom for a Speakon Barrel]. But after this particular incident, he stood up in front of all of BT KIDS on Sunday and said the following unforgettable words:

"IT'S REAL, Y'ALL!!"

Yes... his ears has HEARD of Amy's Great Adventures, but now his eyes had SEEN, and he became a believer. A believer that it actually is possible to have this many ridiculousandcrazythings just HAPPEN to one particular person.

But, you might think - how often do those things really happen? Well, let's just take the past seven days for example. In that time, I managed to:

1) Attempt to enter my house quietly as my roommates were sleeping... and in the process trip over absolutely nothing, causing me to fall backwards against the door of my room which then swung back against my wall with a thundering crash, knocking over some unknown item which fell directly into the "ON" button of my hair dryer which began blowing with a ferocity that I've never before seen on an appliance.

2) Almost fall completely out of a subway car because my brain had temporarily lost the ability to function... and despite the fact that I could CLEARLY see that the opposing side doors were firmly closed [and therefore the doors behind me must be the ones that were opening], I leaned backwards to rest on the [open] subway doors. Thankfully, my traveling companion was still operating with normal brain-cell capacity and caught me before I tumbled right out of the car and landed on my hand and/or laptop bag [not sure which would have been worse].

3) Make an absolute spectacle of myself in downtown Brooklyn one cold, rainy morning when my umbrella decided not just to invert, but to actually unhinge the umbrella fabric from the frame and start blowing down Fulton Street. I absolutely refused to run after it [amazing how tightly we cling to the last modicum of dignity even when we're pretty much scraping the bottom of the Pride Barrel] so I calmly walked about 3/4 of a block before catching up to my unhinged umbrella fabric [see Image 1.1 and 1.2].

Image 1.1

Image 1.2

I promise you I'm not making these things up.  And it's always common, ordinary objects that end up being my demise: umbrellas, hair dryers, subway doors, etc.  And in pondering all of these things, I realize that I've never blogged about my #1 nemesis... the thing that has felled me more frequently than any other normal, everyday occurence...

The Laundromat.

I'm not one of those people who has dreams of grandeur when it comes to my future house - I don't dream of walk-in closets and bay windows and all that other stuff that people seem to want in their homes.  But if I could have a home with a washer/dryer [okay, and a dishwasher], I could die happy.  The kitchen could be the size of a thimble, but as long as I can wash and dry my clothes without going outside, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

My laundromat is only a few blocks away, so I really shouldn't complain.  But it just seems that every time I go there, chaos ensues.  Like the time that I put my clothes in the washer, went back to transfer them to the dryer, and then somehow completely forgot that I was doing laundry for six hours until 11:15 PM that evening when the laundromat was already closed.

Or how about the time when I put my clothes in the dryer, put in 70 minutes worth of quarters [it was a big load], pushed start, left, came back an hour later to find my clothes perfectly still, sopping wet... and the empty dryer NEXT to mine whirring joyfully, having been drying NOTHING for the past 62 minutes.  How I managed to put the quarters in the wrong machine and START the wrong machine without noticing that something's amiss baffles me.

But none compares to... 
AMY'S GREAT ADVENTURES, EPISODE XXVII: The Lady and the Laundromat

It was a normal, everyday Monday morning in upper Park Slope, Brooklyn.  I had a day off and was leisurely taking a trip down to the laundromat - being fairly certain that it would be empty at noontime on a Monday, and I was correct.  The only other person there was a middle-aged woman who looked incredibly harried as she was in the process of transferring her laundry from various washers into various dryers.  I remembered being silently grateful for the leisurely-ness of my morning and that I didn't have to get sucked up into haste and agitation.

As she flustered about, I began to put my own clothes into various washers - trying to calculate what combination of big/small machines I could use to spend the least amount of money possible.  I made my choices, loaded up my machines with quarters and detergent, and then got ready to begin the washing process.  I would always wait and put the quarters in all of the different machines first before I hit START so that one load wouldn't finish before the other [weird, I know].  So my machines were prepped, and I confidently hit START on all three of them.  And then two things happened at once.

On my way out, out of the corner of my eye I saw one of my bright red t-shirts still in one of the washing machines that wasn't moving.  I became confused, because I knew that I had started all three machines.  And then, at the same time, I saw the harried woman come over to the washing machines to get her last load of clothes out... and I saw her stop and look at the machine in horror.

Apparently, I had AGAIN put my quarters in the wrong machine, and I had just started to re-wash her already-washed clothes.

For a brief moment, I seriously thought she was going to belt me in the mouth.  But instead, she just gave me a verbal tongue-lashing that still brings me to shudder.  And the worst part was, there was nothing I could do about it!  Once the machine starts, you can't stop it until the cycle is complete [it was a jacked up laundromat, I know].  And what possible explanation could I give for how I put quarters in the wrong MACHINE... and STARTED it?  I just kept saying, "I'm..... sorry.  I'm sorry!  Oh man, I'm sorry..." over and over again.  Apparently she had rushed to the laundromat from work to wash her clothes and she had to go back - she didn't have time to wait for another wash cycle.

I honestly don't even remember how we resolved the situation - I think I took her cell phone and called her when her clothes were done so that she could run back from work to finish them.  Needless to say, I felt like seven kinds of idiot.

Moral of the story: .... I don't know.  Don't be me, I guess.  Buy a home with a built in washer/dryer.  Or at least try to reserve a couple of functional brain cells before you walk to the Laundromat.

Until next time, we are...
Fooling Things Ministries: Confounding Wisdom and Common Sense in a Neighborhood Near You!

2 comments:

Jenn McNeil said...

oh no!!!!! i dont know what to say, LOLOLOLOLOL


I love you Amy! what would like be without your true stories!

Nanners said...

*satiation*