Reed Goes to the Laundry Place

               Sounds really interesting right? Going to the Laundromat? Well this is my first writing after moving to the city. Hopefully these columns will give anyone who cares insight into my musings in San Francisco. Having just moved down to the big city, I have a lot to learn as you’ll soon find out.

First things first, I Google map “laundry” on my iphone, two places come up, one which my roommate had told me about earlier. I decide to check that place out as it’s only a few blocks away. Well only a few blocks away on a map feels like a trek through the Amazon when you’re carrying an enormous load of laundry uphill. Now the weather apps (yes I have more than one cuz two is better than one) said today would be about 63* or so which I judged as not t-shirt worthy. Well the shirt I decided to wear is apparently made of wool and now completely soaked in sweat as I ventured up the Broadway tunnel hill.

‘Ah, at last. Victory!’ I reach the Laundromat only to stare puzzled at this thing on the door, it looks like a lock but that can’t be possible cuz everyone does their laundry on Sunday and only a complete idiot would shut down a laundry place on Sunday. Just to be sure I kick it.. yes it is definitely a lock. “Sunday: closed.” ‘FML I am going to kill somebody. Ok chill out there is another Laundromat a mere 10 or so blocks away in the complete opposite direction, no worries.’ Making a mental note to never come back here again, I begin my descent down the hill wondering why I think sarcastically to myself and eventually get to Van Ness and turn left.

I should mention that carrying a huge laundry basket full of soiled chonnes and other delights down a busy street is a little awkward. I tell myself ‘this is the city, everyone has to do laundry so I am sure people walk down the street with their stained clothes hanging out of a basket and nobody cares.’ As I’m writing this I am still unsure if that is normal or not but it’s what I had to do so eat your heart out San Francisco.

Anyway, I arrive at the next laundry place only to see yet another locked door and some sign saying you have to schedule your laundry.. Sorry for my language, but who the fuck schedules laundry, I mean do these people make it so you have to schedule a time to come and use the coin machine too, or maybe I was late to that appointment because I missed my appointment to pick up my coffee, what are these people thinking.

By this point my girlfriend would be face palming because I didn’t call beforehand, so learning from my mistakes I dial the next Laundromat. A young guy answers saying they’re open and that they have a coin machine which is good cuz I require one. I stand up pickup my basket and I’m off, smooth walking my cool hipster San Franciscan ass down the street with my headphones around my neck and my laundry in hand. Seven or so blocks later I arrive. Beads of sweat dripping down my face, I plop down my laundry with a sigh of relief and take a breather. That’s when some guy turns to me and says ‘Hey I forgot to mention the coin machines are out of service.’ Without so much as a response I moan, pick up my load yet again and head out the door, only this time I am on the hunt for the nearest ‘anything that has a cash register.’ I spot a coffee shop across the street.

Not really knowing the coffee shop-laundry basket- sweaty back etiquette I casually enter the shop and put my laundry down by the door. I got a couple of eyes from the patrons but at this point I was so beyond caring I hardly noticed. I grab the first drink I could see out of the fridge and slam it on their desk and said “quarters.” The cashier was a nice lady but she wasn’t taking to my unkempt, brutish pitch so I had to collect myself fast. After serenading her in Italian opera, err being nice and asking how many quarters I could have she gave me a couple dollars’ worth.
I pick up my laundry and confidently stroll across Van Ness to the laundry place. The sun is shining, I got my quarters, I’m so sweaty right now that I’m started to get wind chill and feeling good. ‘Ok which machine should I use..hmm.’ ‘Well they both look the same so whate-- wait wtf, these two are identical and one says “$2.25” and the other says “$4.50” and yet another says “---.---‘What the fuck is this, why are they the same, they have different prices and one is just broken or something? wtf.’

At this point a normal person would just go with the cheaper one and be thankful that they all aren’t $4.50. Well apparently I’m a freak because this discrepancy drove my brain into a fit. I sat there for about two minutes staring at each machine perplexed as to the differences between them. I opened one and looked inside, checked the detergent inlets to see if one only takes some type of premium detergent or something weird, I moved the machines out a bit to check the back, read over the instructions three or so times, fucking ANYThING that would make one of them twice the price of the other but I couldn’t find anything. Finally after about 10 minutes of this I conceded defeat.. to a laundry machine.

Which one is $2.25, $4.50 and ---:---? Can't tell?

Naturally I went for the cheaper one, loaded up my laundry and grabbed my- ‘wait wth, where’s my- oh dammit I forgot my detergent, oh well no worries they have a dispenser here let’s check it out.’ The dispenser has Clorox, Tide and Cheer. ‘Well which one’s better, I mean it doesn’t even show a price. One could be more expensive than the other and this Aloe Vera drink only netted me so many quarters from that coffee shop.’ Again a normal person would just pick one and move on with their life, but I have all day and I want to get my bang for my buck so I whipped my handy dandy iphone and logged into Consumer Reports. ‘Ok, so consumer reports gave the Cheer BrightClean HE the highest score of 51/100 whichhh is kinda shitty but oh well, this one is Cheer so they’re likely similar whatever it’s the best I can get.’

Armed with my 51/100 Consumer Reports scoring detergent, Aloe Vera drink purchased coffee shop quarters and my well-tanned laundry, I am ready to launder. I shove my clothes in the space shuttle window, pour the laundry detergent- ‘wait, which, wtf.’ The laundry detergent thing has three slots to put detergent in each with an amazingly intuitive logo of some space robot laser ship. ‘Left to right is a safe assumption, makes sense, ok.’ With my detergent poured into the left receptacle I chuck in the quarters only to find I am one short. ONE twenty-five cent piece is all that is keeping me from finally doing my laundry. Needless to say I shit a brick.

Space Robot Laser Ship.

Ten minutes later I arrive back at the laundromat with fresh, mocha purchased quarters. Now I’m on a mission. No confident, leisurely stroll across the block; I have one singular purpose in life and if this fucking laundry machine doesn’t wash my clothes here in about five minutes it’s going to be Armageddon San Francisco.

Armageddon.

I put the last piece of shit quarter in and start the machine. Water begins pouring through the middle receptacle! I frantically try to hand-shovel my detergent from the left to the middle one before the water stops flowing! ‘SNAP shovel shovel shovel shovel!’ I get most of the detergent over, wash my now bubbling hands in the running water and sit down and relax. About a minute after feeling better I realize it usually takes a couple minutes to fill the space shuttle window with water and I needn’t have hurried at all.

Well this is the end of the story, nothing eventful happened after I got the initial load going except some guy raging over the broken coin machines and hitting the washers to make his coins go down, he was really close to throwing a fit and I had my iphone ready but alas he calmed himself.

The end.