I’m waiting at the Super Wash in a yellow plastic scooped chair between a ficus tree and a dispenser of coffee in paper cups. The man who hasn’t stopped humming since he carried his first load of clothes through the back door slips quarters into the coffee machine and chats as his cup fills.
“Been coming here for years, twice a month. Decided we’d rather not maintain our own machines at home. They replaced the old coffee dispenser with this one—double the price but double the size. And do you know he spent $5,000 on new washers? Nice owners, from South Korea, always cleaning the place. The plants are a nice touch.”
I watch him quizzically as he chatters, wondering if it really is easier to go to the laundromat than do your laundry at home. And only twice a month? He is jovial, if not crisply clean—the type that seems unfazed by a washer broken for 22 days that no one can fix and seven loads of laundry to haul around in a Mini Cooper on a Friday night.
I sort laundry memories while I wait. I’ll hang this one with the others, though the gray strip mall setting off Roosevelt Road isn’t as colorful as the rest.