Usually at some point during my week, I have to do
laundry. Today was laundry day. I was going to do it at a Laundromat, when I
remembered that the convent has a washer & dryer. This time my room is on the 2nd
floor. The basement, where the washer
and dryer are, is 2 floors below the ground floor. I walked two floors up to my room, gathered
my clothes to be washed. I went all four
floors down, realized when I got there that I had forgotten to bring $2.25 in quarters. I left my stuff and went back up the four
floors to get change. I didn’t have
enough. I only had $1.75. I did have a couple dollars, so I went 2
floors down to the office to get change.
The office lady searches, but only has 1 quarter. She asks me to hold on, while she gets her
friend. He comes in and has only 3
quarters. I say that it is fine and give
him the dollar bill. She throws in the 1
quarter she had. I sprang down over the
2 floors to the basement, plunk my $2.25 in the washer, but notice when it gets
to .75 it’s stuck. I put in all nine
quarters. Of course, I pound on it to
see if it will register the $2.25 I had put in.
Instead it went back to me owing $2.25.
So I run up (Yes, at this point I am running.) 1 flight of stairs to the
kitchen to ask if they can help me with the washer. Of course, they all speak Spanish. They can understand me, but I can’t
understand them. So the older Spanish
speaking woman sends the younger Spanish speaking woman down the flight of
stairs to the washer. She signals me
asking if I put nine quarters in, by holding up nine digits. I nod yes, indicating that I had. She fools with it a bit, and then indicates
by pointing that I need to go up to the office. So I take a deep breath and walk intently up 2
flights to the office. I explained my situation, and said I thought the place
where the money goes is full, and that is why it wasn’t registering. She conceded that that was probably so, but
said that the Mother Superior had passed away on Friday, and she was the only
one who knew about the key. I was very
sad to hear that. She was very humorous
when I was there in May 2014. I remember
buying a big 2 ½ gallon container of water (Poland Spring, of course), when I
came in with it she explained that the water here was just fine, and I could
drink it, and didn’t have to buy water.
Then she flashed me this big smile, as if to say gotcha, because of
course, I came back with all the reasons why I needed to have my Poland
Spring.
To continue, the office lady gave it her best effort to find
the key, but to no avail. So I said, I
would just go to the Laundromat, I thought there was one close by. So again, I
descended down the 2 flights of stairs to acquire my clothing, and came back up
again, leaving my clothes at the ground floor and ascending the stairs to get
my stuff. I figured I could write while
waiting for my clothes to wash and dry.
Convent Stairs going up.
Convent Stairs going down.
I walked to the nearest laundromat, which was down a few
blocks. It was a very busy place with
the typical row of washers extending the length of the building, met with the
row of dryers, in the back lining the width of the building. I found a washer that was free. Shoved my clothes in, threw my detergent pod,
and turned it on.
While waiting, I noticed there was a coffee place across the
street. Of course, I could get my latte
while waiting. I needed the rest after
the workout at the Convent. I finished
up writing and walked across the street to put my clothes in the dryer. There was no dryer. All the dryers were filled and actually
backed up. So my thought was, I could take
my laundry back to the Convent, because they had a dryer that worked.
So I walked the few blocks back to the Convent with the wet
heavy load of laundry. I went straight
down the two flights of stairs. I
eagerly put the clothes in the dryer, closed the dryer door, closed the dryer door,
closed the dryer door, and slammed the dryer door, to no avail. With my head hung in defeat, and shoulders
slumped, I realized that the dryer was broken.
I hung my clothes on the line provided, and proceeded to go
to my room to rest. Doing laundry is
exhausting.
No comments:
Post a Comment