At the Wash House

There’s an obese woman with her children at the laundromat on Friday night at 10 o’clock and you’ve got to wonder how those kids will ever make it among the discarded fabric softener sheets and the insanity of cracked blue tile and dirty yellow 70’s folding tables in the part of town a young woman doesn’t want to walk by herself, much less do laundry.  You know these kids are tired, but they carry on like this is great fun to be at the laundromat on a Friday night.  They are manic, destructive little beasts jacked up on a sugar high at the hands of their mother in hopes they would be appeased.  Clearly she’s trying to hold on to a shred of sanity and it has tragically backfired.  Across from the ragged mother there’s a 30’s something couple that looks completely miserable in a bizarre mix of laundry time with quality time.  An overweight guy who’s still wearing his frat shirt, while she’s given up all hope long ago of a place to call home with a white picket fence to keep her in and a ring on her finger to keep him around.  Meanwhile, unfazed, the mother is cranky, screaming at the children to shut up and stay out of the way, while I close my eyes and pray for the spin cycle.

written by Chloe

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