What the hell is up with all the goddamn rain? PP knows that it’s January. It’s the rainy season. That we ‘need’ the rain.(Yes, even she must admit that without rain, there'd be no swimming pools!) But hell. It means that she’s gotta either hang her wet laundry all over the apt. and wait days for it to dry. Or take it to the scary laundry mat on Claremont and Colby.
Where the hell did that laundry mat come from? It’s outta a 3rd world country. PP had no idea that such a place existed in Tony Rockridge. Several dryers marked 'OUT OF ORDER' in bright pink felt pen. Football game blaring on the highest volume possible as a bored African American Gent stares at it completely unengaged. Two moms, also African American, are sorting through 3 tons of laundry. Several carts are loaded with baby clothes, sheets, towels, pants, shirts, and sweats—-PP wonders why only African Americans are in the laundry mat.
Whatever the reason, they all seem really Cranky too!
And she is Cranky Cranky CRANKY about having to go to the stupid laundry mat.
Why is she writing about this you may well ask, dear Readers. What's the crappy laundry mat got to do with swimming? Nothing, except that she was gonna use this time to write her blog. But hey, she can escape laundry mat hell for an hour and at least start the blog, right?
She’ll type fast. She just hopes that no one steals her laundry. Nah. Bored Football Man certainly isn’t her size. And the two women are so focused on their tons of clothes they didn’t even see her come in.
So. The good news for the New Year? DHBF is testing out the YMCA! Yipee! Alas, this last weekend it was utter mayhem as the New Year’s Resolvers all swarmed to the gym. So stupid. Fortunately, the crowds won’t last. Especially in the pool. PP overheard two women, wet and shivering from their swim, complaining today how they just can’t go to the gym in the winter cuz they get colds.
Yeah. PP too. But it doesn’t stop her from going to the Y. Yet the crowds didn’t seem to deter DHBF. He gamely asked Macho Man if he could split his lane, “What side do you prefer?” he’d politely asked. Oh that good mannered Brit style. MM had just hurrumphed. What? Was he supposed to have a conversation in the middle of his workout?
So DHBF got in on the left side. Started swimming. PP, on the other hand, was in Lane Hell. She was already circle swimming when she spied Standing Woman making ready to enter her lane. When PP had brought JL on New Year’s Eve, SW had been blocking the lane then too. Scrawny.... (Sorry, PP knows that’s not a very flattering adjective, but it’s apt.)... Crazy, Chinese Woman with that Look in her eye. The white swim cap circa 1967 snapped snugly under her skinny chin. She nods and smiles at PP before climbing in. Swims 3 strokes and then stops and stands for several seconds. Or minutes even. JL had asked what was up with the standing in the middle of swimming? PP had no answer other than to say that maybe she felt like she had to stop to let swimmers pass. This makes no sense. The other explanation is that she’s just CRAZY!!!!
So, PP felt kinda bad that DHBF’s first swim at the Y was pandemonium. But he didn’t seem to mind. After all, Standing Woman wasn’t in HIS lane! So unlike PP he didn’t have stop, circle around her, almost crash into an oncoming swimmer, and then, whew!, narrowly keep from kicking SW. (Though PP was tempted.)
How much time's left till the laundry’s dry. Damn. What time was it when PP put the clothes in the dryer? 5:45? She thinks so. It’s now 6:15, so she’s got a half an hour to finish this blog. Hey, that’s kinda cool to have a time limit. It means PP can't digress in her usual rambling way.
What else? Oh, yeah, DHBF can give the man’s perspective of Utopia Sauna Talk. PP loves this. She only gets the women’s gossip. What do the men talk about in the Sauna?
Are you all dying to know?
Guy Talk.
Cars. Sports. Women.
It went like this (as far as PP can recall from DHBF’s telling of it on the drive home from the pool—-please forgive her, DHBF, if she gets it slightly wrong. Blame it on the laundry limit)
“I got me a 20 year old car. And a 20-year-old motorcycle. And a 100-year-old house. I ain’t never gonna get me nothing new.”
“Nah, you can’t think that way. You gotta think positive. What you need is a 20 year old girlfriend.”
Lots of guffaws. Then lots of joking about how much trouble a 20-year-old girlfriend would be, esp. for these old geezers. (PP’s summarizing and making a lot of this up, but you get the idea.)
Then they talked about how the rainstorm made the timers on one of the guy's house go all haywire, and so he was asking all the guys in the locker room about how to fix these timers, and they were all giving advice: the best and the most predictable being, of course, the Internet. Then DHBF made some joke about how he can’t find the serial number on the timer without his glasses, but now PP can’t remember how this fit into the story. But it was more self-effacing humor around aging guys.
Guys worry about getting older too. Whether it be their chances with a 20-year-old GF or their chances of reading the serial number on a timer. Testosterone and sight. Two parts that dwindle with age.
With women it’s estrogen and sight too. Though PP thinks she hears more complaints about weight and hair and kids in Utopia.
So, it’s almost time to go get the laundry. PP hopes that it’s dry cuz she does NOT want to watch football.
Welcome to the YMCA, DHBF, and next time, PP will be sure to write down the Men’s Utopia sooner.
Laundry Mat Epilogue
Ok, PP has to admit. That wasn’t so bad. And it IS nice to have warm dryer clothes. She’s gonna be so smug when she wakes up at 6 am tomorrow to the sounds of rain rain rain and her clothes will all be in the apt, folded nice special in their drawers, all dry and clean instead of outside on the line wet and dirty in the rain.
PP really hates it when her clothes get rained on.
Also, PP did get a story when she went to pick up her clothes and granted it’s not a swimming story, but PP thinks maybe a little digression in this New Year might be a good thing.
The two women were gone, but Football Man was still watching the game when she arrived. He even gave her the Evil Eye, but PP just smiled sweetly. Considered asking who was winning, but then thought better of it. As she was getting her clothes out of the dryer, she felt him behind her, doing something weird. She turned and saw that he was bending down between the line of washers, where a disgusting River of suds was gushing. He had some sort of plastic container that he was scooping the sudsy water up with.
What’s up with that?
Then as PP was driving back down Colby, the street now dark and deserted, she caught sight of him hurrying along the sidewalk, the plastic container of used washer water flashing in the streetlight’s glow.
Did he just go the laundry mat to watch the game and collect dirty water?
PP has to wonder.
What do you, Dear Readers, think?
All PP knows, is that she’s glad her clothes are clean, she got her blog written, and she’s still in plenty of time for Bruno v. Carrie Ann in the insipid spin off from Dancing with the Stars.
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