Paws to Remember

The world is divided into two types of people: the washer/dryer owners and the doomed.

I’m a member of the latter group, suffering from my lower status in a thousand different ways. I’m not just doomed to drag my laundry bag nine blocks to the nearest laundromat, either slung over my shoulder like an itinerant Russian sailor or in a wheelie cart like somebody’s grandma, while my neighbors shoot me pitiful looks from the warmth of their fully-equipped homes. I’m not just stuck spending six hours a week in a fluorescent-lit room surrounded by eight television sets, all tuned to different channels and blaring at top volume, as clueless cleaning people jostle me with the pointy ends of their mops.

I’m doomed to stinking, because the fabric softener dispensers on public washing machines work about as often as Lindsay Lohan, and they seem to enjoy dousing my clothes with the scent of Apple-Cinnamon Whore. And I’m doomed to a lifetime of cheap clothing, because these machines are frequently used by impoverished housewives to dye their tired old frocks to bold new colors, so when I fetch my three-hundred-dollar jeans from the washer I’ll discover they’re the exact same shade as strawberry pie.

I know the second I push through the glass doors that I’m going to regret coming in. The excited screams of children echo like this is a bouncy castle rather than a cold, beige room lined with linoleum and acoustical tile. In poor neighborhoods like this, laundromats aren’t just for washing dirty clothing: they’re also the primary source of affordable child care. Load up those washers, give the kids a few bucks for the vending machines, and hit the road. The place is open twenty-four hours, so there’s no need to hurry back. Visit the relatives upstate, watch the seasons change in Pennsylvania, check out the snow pack in Vermont. Rest assured the clothes and the kids will be waiting when you return.

Even before I corral a laundry cart I have eighteen kids banging into me. Evidently they’ve organized some kind of foot race around the perimeter, but a few decide if they cut down the aisles they’ll have a better shot at first place. They zip around the corner at break-neck speed, moving too fast to change course when they spot me. They hit at full force and shriek even louder, causing as much damage to my ears as to my long, spindly legs.

I point them outwards, give them a shove, then load my clothes into washers. When they’re done, I move them to dryers. They spin lazily, drying just slightly faster than if they’d been hanging on a clothesline in a Peruvian rainforest. After eight episodes of Dora the Explorer I dump everything onto a countertop and start to fold.

I’m minutes away from making my escape when a disheveled pair wander down my aisle. The girl is about six or so, with grubby fingernails and Pocahontas hair. The boy, a few years younger, has a Beatles mop and tennis shoes with so many lights that Antarctica must heat up another degree every time he takes a step. I recognize these kids: twenty years from now, she’ll be piercing ears at the Jewelry Barn, and he’ll be wrestled to the ground in front of a Vegas liquor store during an episode of “Cops.”

They’re guiding a laundry cart down the aisle like it’s a bumper car and laughing at its happy, yappy passenger.

A puppy. A filthy, slobbering, caked-with-dirt puppy.

This is it, I decided. The last straw. Prior to this, I’d labored under the delusion that the laundromat’s benefits made up for the horrors I endured. Sure, it was as close to hell as you could get without paying a cover charge, but I only had to endure it for a few hours, while my clean clothes would last up to a week. After I made the bed I’d climb in with a tumbler full of Jack Daniels, and snuggling up to an April-fresh pillow I’d forget I’d even left the house.

Adios to that delusion. Because how clean are those pillowcases going to be after they’ve been sitting in a cart that’s been the playpen for somebody’s pooch? It was time to stop dodging the sociopathic rugrats that ran this joint and give them a piece of my mind.

Rather than just hollering random obscenities at them, though, I decide to give them a lesson they can use. I halt the cart dead in its tracks, and if this were a cartoon I’d morph into a whistling teakettle here. “Maybe you don’t know this,” I snarl, “having pea-sized brains, but we’re trying to keep it relatively sterile around here, and your pet is pretty much a cesspool of germs.”

They stare at me open-mouthed. Oh, right. Tell them a sponge lives inside a pineapple and they’re all “Oh, okay!” but use the words “sterile” and “cesspool” and all of a sudden it’s no comprende pas. I decide to break it down for their age group. “Do you know Oscar the Grouch, from Sesame Street? Oscar is very dirty, because where does he live?”

It looks like the kids are trying to think, but I don’t have all day. “That’s right; he lives in a trash can. Would you want Oscar touching your clothes?” I shake my head as a hint, and pause long enough for them to follow suit. “No, you wouldn’t. Well, your dog is dirtier than Oscar the Grouch.”

They gaze at me blankly, which is my invitation to press farther. I’ve always thought that kids don’t really learn until they burst into tears. “Think about it,” I say, obviously rhetorically. “When Oscar walks around Sesame Street, does he ever step in a pile of Kermit’s crap? No. Does he step in a pile of Big Bird’s crap? No. Because there isn’t any. Sesame Street is clean. Here in New York, though, the streets are covered in crap, so your dog steps in it all the time. So what does that mean? Repeat after me: there are little pieces of shit all over your dog.”

The girl frowns, then says in a barely audible voice: “Little pieces of shit.”

I wait for the second half, but it doesn’t come. No attention span. She’s obviously watched “Hannah Montana” one too many times.

“And after your dog goes to the bathroom, what does he do? He licks himself. He licks that furry little butt, and then he licks his paws, and his tummy, and his legs. He takes those little pieces of shit that were on his butt, and he spreads them all over his body. Got that? Little pieces of shit, all over his body.”

She’s a bit more prepared for the audience-participation part this time, but I’m not holding my breath. “Little pieces of shit,” she declares.

“Dogs touch shit, they lick shit, they play with shit. And then you go and take one to the laundromat, and you stick him in a laundry cart. And what’s he spreading all over the laundry cart?

“Little pieces of shit?”

“Exactly! Aren’t you a smart little girl!” Yeah, maybe I’m a liar, but maybe I’m grading on a really low curve. “So when my clothes touch the cart, I get little pieces of shit on my clothes, and then I get little pieces of shit on me. When my sheets touch the cart, I get little pieces of shit on my sheets, and then I get the little pieces of shit on me.” Pause for effect, though I’m thinking these kids probably don’t appreciate dramatic tension. “But I don’t want little pieces of shit on me,” I declare. “So GET THE GODDAMNED SHIT-COVERED DOG OUT OF THE GODDAMNED LAUNDRY CART.”

Her face contorts like the Nazi’s in “Indiana Jones” right before it bursts into flame. She grabs the puppy and hightails it down the aisle while her brother follows, his disco shoes lighting the way. I sigh contentedly and go back to folding. Even if you can’t find kids at that impressionable age, you can still make an impression on them.

I’m piling all my clean clothes in the laundry bag when the front door opens, and a husky blue-collar dude with a shaved head walks in. He’s covered almost equally in muscles and tattoos, wearing a white tanktop that shows off both. He spots my two students, yells “Hey, kids!” and I freeze solid where I stand.

They scurry over to him and hug his legs as I laugh nervously. Eventually he’ll find out about my little lesson. Eventually. At some point in time. But by then I’ll be safe at home.

The little girl gazes up at him pitifully. “Little pieces of shit,” she squawks.

Or maybe not, I think.

“Who called you that?” her father asks, and she points her grubby little finger straight at me.