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.

CONTENT WARNING: Gross

I own a laundry here in rural Ireland. Two customers are a pair of bachelor farmers, brothers, who inherited a large farm and a lot of money but live in absolute squalor. Once a month, they bring their suits, shirts, and undergarments in for cleaning. The garments are covered inside and out with dirt, dried saliva, and fecal matter.

The first time they came in, I told them that in no universe in existence would they be allowed to load their clothes in that state into our machines, so we literally had to hose everything down in the yard and soak it in a barrel of peracetic acid solution, usually used for nappies (diapers), before they put them through the machines.

When we finished cleaning one load in the yard, one of them said:

Customer: “Okay, so that takes care of the animal s***.”

Me: *Concerned.* “As opposed to…?”

Customer: “This second load is human s***.”

Me: *Concern becoming alarm.* “Why would these have human s***?”

Customer: “Well, sometimes when you’re out on the farm and you’re far from the house but you really need to go…”

I should have banned them after that, but I felt sorry for them, and they did follow all my instructions about the deep cleaning in the yard before using the machines.

I still put the machines through several deep clean boil washes after they came through once a month.

I’m the attendant on duty, wiping down folding tables. A young man approaches holding a very tiny, very pink sweater.

Customer: “Hey, uh… this used to be my girlfriend’s sweater. I think something went wrong.”

Me: *Looks at it.* “Was it wool?”

Customer: “I think so? I just threw everything in on hot to make it go faster.”

Me: “Ah. That’ll do it.”

Customer: “So… can it go back to normal if I wash it again?”

Me: “Uh… that’s not how it works.”

Customer: “D*** it. Well, I guess the cat has a sweater now…”

I do my laundry weekly at the exact same laundromat I have for the last year on the same day of the week at the same time, nothing ever happened before, that is, until today. 

I get into the building, and I notice a mom and her kid, probably no older than five or six, just running around without care. I find an open washer and toss my clothes inside, grab my bag of Tide Pods, and toss some in. That’s when the kid notices what I have and comes up to me.

Kid: “What are those?”

Me: “They are Tide Pods; they clean my clothes.”

Kid: “No, they don’t, mommy has a big bottle of soap!”

Me: “These are soap too, but they don’t make a mess.”

Kid: “Oh. Okay.”

The kid runs off to his mom, and I assume he is telling her all about Tide Pods. I look out of the corner of my eye and notice the mom gestures towards me and says something to her kid. A few moments later, the kid is back, but doesn’t say anything to me. I take out my earbud and ask:

Me: “What’s up?”

The kid just stares at me and then stares at the bag of pods. I then hear his mom yell from across the room:

Mom: “Well? Did you get your toy?”

I’m confused, but the kid just turns tail and runs off back to his mom. I can see that she is telling him something, and a few moments later, he’s back.

Kid: “Can I have some of those?”

Me: “No, they aren’t for kids to mess with.”

Kid: “But mommy said I could have some to play with!”

Me: “No, you can’t, they aren’t toys and they aren’t yours.”

Kid: “But mommy said you have to give me some!”

Me: “I don’t care what your mommy said, they aren’t yours and they aren’t toys!”

I admit, I started to get heated, and my tone of voice started to get more stern. That’s when I hear it… the inevitable rumble of the mom.

Mom: “EXCUSE ME! DON’T YOU DARE YELL AT MY SON!”

Me: “I didn’t yell at him, ma’am, I was just—”

Mom: *She cuts me off.* “—DON’T YOU LIE TO ME! I heard the whole thing, and you yelled at my baby!”

Me: “Whatever you say, lady.”

I stop being polite at this point.

Kid: “Mommy! He won’t give me the toy!”

Me: “Kid, these aren’t toy—”

Mom: *She cuts me off again.* “—GIVE HIM THE TOYS! NOW! You’re too old to be playing with toys!”

I’m a thirty-year-old man.

Mom: “He deserves them for being such a good boy today!”

Me: “Lady, these are not toys, they are TIDE PODS!”

Mom: “I don’t care what they are, my baby wants to play with them, and you have to give them to him!”

Me: “No, I don’t…”

She now looks like she’s about to turn into a cartoon steam whistle at this point, so I decided to put my music back on and ignore her. I could hear her very faint yelling over my music, but I just ignored her, and she walked away with her wailing child.

About half an hour later, I notice that my clothes are done drying, and I go over to grab my wonderfully warm clothes from the dryer. That’s when I glanced up and noticed the kid wasn’t with his mom. I figure he is harassing someone else and don’t think much of it.

As I’m folding laundry, I glance up again and there it is… the kid has my bag of Tide Pods next to his mom, and he’s playing with the pods… and he’s being super aggressive with them. Clenching them hard, pulling them from both ends, stomping on them, and throwing them around. His mom is sitting there smiling while watching her kid play with a toxic ball of liquid.

I immediately walk over and snatch the bag from them.

Me: “What the h***, lady? You let your kid steal from me and play with something that is TOXIC?!”

Mom: “He’s fine, it’s not like you need them all to yourself! Stop being so selfish!”

Me: “Look, lady, I should call the cops and tell them your kid is running around stealing from people, while you let him and that you’re letting him play with toxic things like they are toys!””

Mom: “He’s just a kid! He didn’t do anything wrong!”

And that’s when it happened. Her kid had jumped onto a Tide Pod, and it burst. He slipped and hit his head. (He’s fine.) He starts SCREAMING as loud as he can.

Mom: “Look what you did! You hurt my baby! I’m calling the cops!”

Me: *A little startled and trying not to laugh out of nervousness for the kid’s head hitting the floor.* “Lady, you call whoever you want, your kid did this to himself!”

She just picked up her now snot-and-soap-covered crying kid and left, still screaming about police and how I hurt her kid. I just went back to folding my clothes and left.

The police never came while I was there, but the mom left her clothes in the washer, and I don’t know if she came back for them. Next week, I’m going to a DIFFERENT laundromat…

There is a hunched, hobbling old lady who stands outside the laundromat every day. Every time someone stops at the red light, she approaches the car, pointing back at the laundromat. I’ve seen many people give her change and more give her bills.

I found it odd that she was washing her clothes every day, so I pulled over.

Lady: “Hi, sweetheart. Do you have a quarter? I’m just short for my laundry this week.”

Me: “No problem. Where is your laundry?”

Lady: “In the washer.”

Me: “Okay, I’ll cover it. Which one?”

I walked toward the laundromat, but she stopped me. 

Lady: “Oh, honey, I don’t want to be a bother. Just a quarter will be fine.”

Me: “No, it’s okay. Which one?”

Lady: “Just a quarter will be fine.”

Me: “I can’t do that. If you need help, I’ll help.”

Lady: *Getting annoyed* “Please just a quarter.”

Me: “I wouldn’t feel right just—”

Lady: “Oh, f*** off!”

She stomped away, no longer hunched or hobbling. I walked into the laundromat and saw that the washers were completely empty. I don’t know what she was using the money, for but it obviously wasn’t laundry!