Laundromat Meditations

This is a good place to write. Sturdy wooden table. Tile floors. Led Zeppelin pinball machine. A library (surprisingly no Bible). The sound of the industrial washers and dryers mutes the terrible 70s/80s rock playing on a boombox.

Quarters only. The machines won’t take bills or debit card. No WI-Fi either.

A young woman is reading a book about color composition.

A young obese couple is eating fast food and drinking huge sodas from the convenience store a block away.

The employee who runs this operation runs a very tight ship. I just thanked him for keeping it clean. His boxer follows him around.

Outside, homeless men and women pass by on a regular basis.

I stashed one of my books in the library. Why not? It might remain there for a quarter century before anyone reads it or reads it at all. Where will this nation be in 25 years?

Most customers don’t hang out inside. They play with their phones out in their vehicles.

I have been thinking about purchasing a washer and dryer for the house, but don’t mind coming here.

Who owns this laundromat? How does one get into this kind of business?

We know so little about how a vast majority of Americans earn a living. Writers don’t write enough about modern American jobs. The same could be say for musicians or visual artists. The Democratic Party follows this same line.

Was “Takin’ Care of Business” the last great rock song about work? Springsteen used to write a lot of songs about work. (“The Factory” and “Working on the Highway” come to mind.)

I just remembered Glen Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman.”

My agenda after the laundromat: mow front lawn, build shelves, take Elmer to the beach (third time), read.

I continue to think about my father’s death, certainly not in some traumatic way. Just remembrances. These thoughts typically emerge when I am performing manual labor. I can’t truly let him go until I wrap up estate matters with the kind of alacrity he taught me.

Total cost of this visit: $6.50.