"Washateria Thoughts Watching The Clothes Go Round... And Round!"

Just like old times!

Yesterday, I decided to try and save a big, green pillow that my mother used to sit up in bed to read or watch television. The pillow had a pretty stiff back with arm rests on the left and right sides of the pillow. It was not soiled enough to discard, so I decided to wash it to see if it could be salvaged and return it to my mother, who is now in a nursing center.

Yeh, yeh, yeh... I know! I'm a wonderful son...

But, this isn't about mom, pillows or care taking. It is about laundrymats, or as we used to call it, "wash-a-terias!" In New Orleans, we seem to have a word for everything that shows somehow that we come from another planet. But, that's a story for another time.

Nothing makes a person so privileged as having your own washer and dryer. Sitting here, blowing a perfectly good Saturday, watching that now heavy, wet pillow go "round and round" in a local wash-a-teria brings back so many memories. Not necessarily great memories, but memories.

One is normally introduced to the joys of such a place when one goes away to college unless one was a rich kid and brought dirty laundry home for mom to attend to while one spends the weekend partying with those "so-called friends!" College wash-a-terias were considered a great place to meet girls because they also had to wash their clothes. Sadly though, if you never hung out at the local college beer joint because you had to save up to get your clothes washed over the weekend, then, using that excuse to meet girls is a pretty lame excuse.

Believe me, I know!

But, the campus experience is only one of the many experiences you can have at a wash-a-teria because there are such a wide variety to choose from. The clientele, in real world wash-a-terias, vary from roust-a-bouts returning from some Gulf oil spill, and hookers washing their tutus and fairy outfits in the wee hours in Hollywood, to a soccer mom washing the uniforms of an entire family of screaming and unruly ballplayers.

The odor of these places regardless of the clientele are a strange combination of bleach, sweat, mold, and musty, dryer lint balls. And, you might think twice before putting your cleaned and dried clothes that you spent a fortune to get cleaned and dried, on one of those tables to fold.

Since most women are usually stuck with the task of cleaning clothes, they are the ones who demand a decent facility to perform the dirty job. When we were newlyweds, and bounced around from one apartment to another in a variety of towns, the main criteria seemed to be, for my wife, having a residence that had it's own washroom.

Today, while doing this drawing, I was having a chuckle or two thinking about all the apartment complexes I believed were really great that my wife wanted nothing to do with. After dropping five dollars worth of quarters in a large dryer trying to get that fat pillow dried, I'd have to agree with my better half.

Home Sweet Home, ain't... if it doesn't include a washer and a dryer, ha!

Copyright 2014/Ben Bensen III