Dying For A Drying

Working mostly service jobs, I’ve never been able to afford a place that has a washer and dryer in-unit. So, I usually have to use the laundromat, and because I’m busy just about every minute of the day, I wind up having to go to a laundromat that’s open late so I can do my laundry.

I’ve put my clothes in and hop back into my car, because I’m also running errands. As I’m driving back, I notice the streetlights go out. The traffic lights are dark.

Oh no. 

I get back to the laundromat, and the lights are off. I hope that the cycle is at least finished, but no such luck. My clothes are dripping wet. The attendant is closing up, as apparently a drunk driver hit a utility pole, and it’s going to be a couple of hours before it’s fixed. Lucky me.

I load the clothes back into my car, hoping they don’t soak all the way through the trunk, and speed up the road to the nearest laundromat, and I pray that they’re open.

I walk in, and the attendant there looks at me, annoyed.

Attendant: “Last wash was half an hour ago.”

Me: “Okay… What if I just want to dry some things?”

I tell her how the power went out at the place down the road, and that I’m basically stuck with dripping wet clothes.

And this absolute gem of a human helps me haul my dripping wet clothes out of the car. I proceed to wring out the worst offenders in the parking lot, and she takes them and tosses them into the dryer, for free, spacing everything out in different machines so things dry faster.

By the time everything is in the dryers, I am soaking wet, and it’s closing in on 10 PM, but she helped me finish up and didn’t charge me anything but the first few quarters I popped in when I started. 

I thanked her profusely and tried to give her something, but she wouldn’t accept anything. So, I left a note for the owner with a glowing review. I hope it helped her out, but I never saw her at that laundromat again, so I have no idea.