11 April 2010
Know what I hate?
Oh, you do?
Okay, well here’s one more thing to add to the list: people’s behavior at community laundromats.
Today, I walked down to our apartment’s laundry room (our building has three laundry rooms; I visited the closest one), and there was a loads of clothes in each of the two dryers. I figured this wouldn’t be a problem, as I still needed to run mine through the wash, and I was sure those dryers would be empty when I returned.
But they weren’t. So I went back a little later, and they still weren’t. So then I went back later still and, this time, I took my neighbors’ clothes out of the dryers and placed them in piles on top of the machines.
When I came back an hour later to get my clothes, those piles were still sitting there.
Okay, so that’s nothing to get upset about, right? I mean, it’s baffling to me how people can begin to do their laundry (in a public place) and then just forget about it for so long. And this happens all the time – every time I go down there, I have to remove someone’s clothes from the laundry.
This happened in our last apartment, too. Jennifer came back upstairs twice, complaining that all four washers were full with someone’s clothes. Finally, she went back a third time and took the clothes out and set them on top. When she went back to retrieve our stuff later, guess what? The owner of the long-forgotten clothes was there, and she yelled at Jennifer for touching her clothes.
So then Jennifer was nervous to go do the laundry (she was a little more timid back then). I even started going to the laundry room with her, so that she wouldn’t be yelled at again by that woman. We repeatedly were forced to delay our laundry because her clothes were spending the weekend in the wash.
One evening, I went downstairs with Jennifer, and that woman’s clothing was in the washing machine again. And still there an hour later. Needing the clothes for the next day, I said: “This is ridiculous,” and pulled the woman’s clothing out. Jennifer was not really on board with this, so she left me to my own device.
We went back down an hour later, and guess who was waiting for us? She yelled at us, but I yelled back – actually, I didn’t yell. I was firm, and I used some good ol’ fashioned logic.
After that, the woman was extremely pleasant to my wife, even holding the door open for her and helping her unload the groceries one afternoon and carry them into the building.