Clean clothes and old yeller....

So, ever since I moved to Medford, I've been fairly consistently visting back to Weymouth every weekend. To see the folks, and, of course, do laundry. Well, now because of the NFL, my available weekend time is one day, since Sunday is now pretty much spoken for, and my ability to go down to Weymouth and do laundry for free is hampered. (Ya like that? Little play on words. Take it home, it's yours.)

See, my apartment doesn't have a washer and dryer. Bummer. And inevitably this was going to lead me back to the land of the laundromat.

Well, being as I got home yesterday and promptly thought to myself, "Why does my room smell like feet?," I decided that maybe it was the week and half's worth of dirty clothes piling up in my closet and maybe I should do something about that.

So I grab some baggies, fill them up with detergent (powder), so that the look like nice little bags of cleansing cocaine, and hop in the car to start checking out the laundromats of the Medford/Sommerville area. I haven't had to use one since I lived in JP a few years back. Not that it's a totally terrible experience, but at the same time, there's a million other things I'd rather be doing.

Being that it's been a couple of years since I've been to one, I have this picture in my head of going to the laundromat and doing my laundry, and getting to look around at all the pretty young ladies doing theirs as well. Watching them fold frilly undergarments, seemingly oblivious to the men checking them out. Striking up conversations over a lack of dryer sheets or fabric softener. Or change for a dollar.

But I watch too many movies.

Man, I forgot how dismal those places are.

The reality is more like it's myself, the old oriental guy, the older Indian lady, Captain Grizzled Headphones, and the jackass that seriously must have been doing six months of washes. I'm sitting there, my three washers going (whites, colors, and towels, because I'm all about the segregation), and wondering about the ever growing leak beneath one of my machines, when I see this guy. He had been moving stuff over from the washing machines to the dryers in one of the laundromat's ghetto-carts. At first I didn't think much of it, but I kept seeing him go back and forth. And then I started counting. Once he got up to the point that he was using a DOZEN!! dryers, I started to panic. This place isn't that big. And there are a few other people in there. I'm worried that Commander Clean here is going to have an ironclad monopoly on all the dryers, and I'm going to be waiting around all night with sodden clothes just to get into one of these things. Seriously, he pulled so many quarters out of his back pocket that I'm surprised his pants weren't around his ankles with just the sheer weight of them. So I go to my machines and thankfully they're done. Because now, in my mind, it's a race to claim some dryers, or spend the rest of my night waiting. Thankfully I got a couple, and at the same time, he did stop claiming dryers like gold stakes shortly thereafter...at a mere 14 dryers.

Seriously.

How many clothes does this guy have?

So, yeah, the dryers. Nothing much about these. It'll take me a trip or two to get a good handle on the best way to use them. How long, what temparature, how hot can I push it without shrinking my clothes to toddler size, because the dryers are 25 cents for 10 measly minutes. If it's a lean weak, it looks like dry clothes are going to be a luxury.

This was my first laundromat experience of the new apartment.

Except....

As I was leaving, I did run into my buddy, Yelling Guy.

Did I tell you about Yelling Guy?

A few weeks ago, I was walking to Davis Square. I'm about halfway there, and I pass a bus stop with a few people sitting at it. This older guy, I don't know maybe 40s or even early 50s, gets up and starts walking towards me. Even though I know better, I take off my iPod headphones, because it's apparent he wants to say something or ask me something.

And he says something, all right. He says, "AHHBUPHLARKCUMANITER, FUTH! MACOLONIFPTHPTHH...HURRRRTEENMOPTHINGFLERG!!!!"

Or something like that. At full volume. 90 or so decibels.

And he follows me for about a block. Yelling, nonstop. The same sort of stuff.

I'm halfway between just being amazed that any set of lungs can hold this much air, and fearing for the inevitable frustrated pummeling that he's going to deliver any moment, because I don't understand him, and maybe he's getting annoyed that I'm trying to speed up and get away.

At any rate, after about a block, he drops off and starts in on someone else.

Point being, is apparently he must either live around there, or it's his hang out, because I've seen him twice since. Once a week or so ago, and the other time last night as I was leaving the laundromat. He appears to remember me, as when I was walking to my car, he gave me a, "RUHFLOPERTHARG!!!"

I gave him a polite head nod back, and went on my way.