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| Visiting a laundromat at 3 in the morning by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 06/13/2012, 3:42am PDT | ||||
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| Last night I set up my clothes out in the dining room to take them to the laundromat because I can't take them downstairs to use the washer there. The laundromat is only two blocks away. I get my clothes out and put them in my storage carrier I use for toting things, either bringing groceries, office supplies and computer equipment home, or in this case, carrying trash bags with laundry in them to the laundromat. I think I got finished around 7 or 8.
So, anyway, after I got finished I was exhausted so I decided to take a nap, and I said, once I woke up and was refreshed, I was taking my clothes to the laundry. I think I must have slept 6 hours or more, because I woke up and it was 3 am. So I said, "Ok." I went out to the living room, locked the door to my room (I live in a rooming house), hooked my storage carrier to my seatbelt, put the carrier on the footrest, balanced the other bag of laundry on top, rolled out the front door after locking it, grabbed the handle on the door and pulled it shut (I have a separate handle on the left side of the door so I can just pull behind me as opposed to having to stop, turn around, and pull the door closed by the knob.) So I rolled down to the laundromat, got there maybe 3:30 (it's open 24/7), loaded the clothes in a 40 pound front-loading washer (the $4.75 one), closed and locked the machine, setting it for hot water wash, poured detergent and color-safe bleach in the wash tank, poured another capfull of detergent into the pre-wash tank, rolled over to the change machine, broke a ten, then put the quarters in the machine. Once it started, I rolled a couple blocks down the street to the CVS all-night drug store. I pick up an item I need and some cookies and milk. Use the self-service check out, pay cash and leave. Get back to the laundromat, eat some cookies with the milk until I run out of milk, then discover the washer is done, unload it, take the contents over and split it into two driers, doing some load balancing so that I mix thin items (underwear, socks, shirts, sheets) with heavy items (pants, towels). Throw a buck in each, which will get 32 minutes. Then I realize I went to CVS and forgot to get some Mountain Dew. I'm out, and I don't want to wait until I can visit Target or Giant Food and get it cheaper, I'll pay the $2 a bottle for now. So I turn around and go back to CVS, pick up the soda, pay cash, and leave, after fighting with the checkout counter. Seems you can't fast-process items at the self-service checkstand CVS uses; you have to scan each item and put it in the bag before scanning the next item. So if I buy 10 bottles of soda, I can't just flash the UPC ten times then load the bottles, no, I've got to individually scan each item. (I can do this at the self-service scanner at Giant, and if I count non-food places, the one at Home Depot will allow me to fast-scan a multi-purchase). While I was only buying two bottles, I couldn't fast scan them and when I tried doing that, then putting them in my storage carrier and hit 'pay now' it won't let me. I have to back out and put both on the scale, then it will show the 'pay now' button and I can give my money to it. If it wasn't for the fact I have no soda left I was very near angry enough to just leave it. So I get back to the laundromat and discover that the time has expired but my clothes are still moist for some of the thicker items. Which seems odd, usually doing all of them for 48 minutes in one machine is enough, splitting them into two machines should have been enough. But, low and behold, I didn't set the heat to high, so it was doing medium heat. So I throw everything in one machine and toss two quarters in for 16 minutes, this time on high. Come back about 12 minutes later and everything is dry. I put everything in a new, larger trash bag I have - the load was previously in three small kitchen trash can bags, I'm now using a much larger 26 gallon bag. So I roll home, I get home and here I am. Now, the thought probably comes up, that I'm going out on the street at 3 in the morning. And I'm a handicapped man, I'm an even weaker target for a robber. Well, you have to realize something. Criminals are not hard working people, they're mostly lazy. Which means that when you want to rob people, you don't go trolling mostly residential areas in good communities in the middle of the night, you pick areas where there's lots of people. Which is why you're statistically more likely to be robbed at 3 in the afternoon than at 3 in the morning. Where I live for close to a mile on both sides there's nothing of any commercial operation. There is a shopping center about 6 blocks north of my house (where the CVS is), and there's a McDonalds about 6 blocks south. Laundromats usually don't get much walk-in traffic, it's mostly people in cars. So the possibility of running into anyone at that time of the morning, let alone someone who is looking to rob someone, is essentially zero. |
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Visiting a laundromat at 3 in the morning by 06/13/2012, 3:42am PDT  Many robbers dislike the smell of piss. NT by 06/13/2012, 5:00pm PDT "I love the smell of napalm...err I mean piss in the morning. Smells of kidney." NT by 06/27/2012, 11:31am PDT |
