Laundry Crazy

The last few weeks we’ve been going to the local laundromat to do our weekly masses of laundry.  There have been a few interesting characters on various weeks.

Today we have a lady who is probably in her late 60’s or early 70’s, doing laundry and reading the paper while waiting for various loads.  She’s occupying the table on one end of the laundromat.

My son and I are at one of the two middle tables and a mom with her two very cute little girls is at the table next to us. 

On the other side of the laundromat are two folks who appear to be students:  a man and a woman who are not here together. 

As I was transferring my clothes from the washer to the dryer, a lady came in spouting something about the washing machines and baskets as she walked back and forth.  I thought she was on the phone.  Apparently so did my fellow launderers.

Suddenly, as I was opening my last washer, this lady started opening the female student’s washers.  We were all looking at each other in surprise.  Her washing machines had barely stopped spinning.

The female student dived across the small aisle between her table and the washers and said, “Those are mine.  They have barely stopped.”

To which the new lady replied, “Well, there are other people here who need machines.”

The laundromat is very much not busy today and there are plenty of machines.  The machines in question are the single load machines and are therefore the least expensive of the lot. 

I couldn’t believe that this lady was being so rude to the student.  I said, “Hey, settle down a bit.  She hasn’t been here that long and her machine just stopped.”

New lady started informing me that some people just have to spout off and that’s what she was doing.  Therefore, I shouldn’t treat her like a child and that I needed to stop yelling at her.  And perhaps if I stopped yelling that she would apologize to the student.

I just looked at her and went back to pulling my clothes out of the washing machine.  The student was looking at me like, “THANK YOU!  I can’t believe she’s acting like this.  What the heck is her deal?”

As I walked over to the dryer, the older lady was turned around looking at me.  She said, “Did she just accuse you of yelling?!”

“Yes.”

“She’s crazy!”

Then new lady finally apologized to the student.  But then proceeded to pester the student while she was trying to do her homework.  People in the place keep looking around her to give each other looks.  And everyone is keeping an eye on her.  Everyone now appears to be concerned that she will get in to someone else’s stuff and we’re all in a protect each other club.  It is in some ways kind of comedic.

But a part of me wonders what is going on with new lady that she think it is ok to come barging in to a place and immediately treat people with disrespect.  Or whether something happened to her this morning that she is on edge.  Though as I write this, I now hear her actually on the phone and it sounds as if she is in a hurry.  I don't think that short on time is a justification for poor behavior.

The look on my son's face as all of this went down was one of complete disbelief.  After all of our lessons on respect at home, he couldn't believe that an adult was acting this way.




Just an interesting day in the laundry.