When Life is a Bad Seinfeld Episode

Let me just preface this entry by saying that when I started blogging a little over a year ago, I never in my life thought I'd be writing at lengthy lengths about the likes of laundromats.

I woke up stiff and sore this morning after spending so much time prone last night. I think I feel asleep about 9:30. I went from not getting any sleep to getting too much. I was able to make it through the day yesterday without a nap. I credit my workout with a much needed energy blast. Endorphins never cease to amaze me. It was apparent I would be needing them when I realized my volunteer duties in kindergarten that day would entail reading Hop on Pop not 2 or 3 times, but 12. I was just as excited as the kids when recess rolled along.

After countless recitations of seehemewepatpuppophethreetreebeetophopstop, I made what I thought would be a quick, mindless stop at the laundromat to wash comforters...a little early spring cleaning. I filled all the double loaders and then walked over to the dry cleaners. When I returned, I realized that the one washer didn't have any suds, and on further inspection came to find it wasn't even filled with water. The woman who "works" there sort of nonchalantly said, "Oh yea...well HE was working on that one today and HE shut the water off. HE must'nt've turned it back on." OK...well, whoever HE is what do WE do now? She stood in front of the machine watching it go round and round and round as if the Maytag God's of rhythmic motion would provide a plan, and I watched her trying to convince myself that I wasn't being Punked.  And then she got all prophetic on me. She said rather proud of her insight, "A watched pot never boils." Well...what could I say except WE would need some water for it to boil. I just wanted to get my quilt out of the #$!# washer! I got up to read the instructions printed on the front of the machine that very clearly said In Case of Emergency, Press START to STOP machine. From where I was standing, this was certainly an emergency: my bedding was being held hostage for heaven's sake! I don't think it will come as a surprise that when I hit START, it kept going. In fact, it started over and the darn door was sealed shut tight as a submarine hatch. You should have seen the look on her face...I thought she was bracing for the second coming she was just that amazed. I looked around for Ashton Kutcher, but he was nowhere to be found. What she did next was priceless. She pressed the START button at least 50 times in succession and looked stupefied when nothing happened. I'm sure she's one of those annoying people who incessantly press the elevator button as if Otis programmed them to read urgency, or more like impatience. I very calmly asked not really trusting she'd have a clue, "What do WE do now?" It took her a minute or two, but she finally responded, "Well, I guess I can give you your $4 back." I refrained from informing her that if WE didn't rescue my comforter it was going to cost a lot more than 16 quarters, and instead reminded her that it would in fact be $4.75 since I just wasted the outrageously priced detergent as well. According to the timer on the machine, there were 20 minutes left in the cycle so I just waited for the possessed machine to run it's course. And 23 minutes later the machine still wouldn't budge. I offered, in the nicest voice possible, to retrieve a crow bar from my car. She obviously assumed that I was driving the muscle car in the lot instead of the mini van because she picked up the phone and called HIM finally sensing my seriousness. HE told HER to unplug the machine, which entailed retrieving a ladder and hoisting her rather rotund body atop the machine. She was grunting and grumbling...reaching and writhing... and I tried desperately to focus on the catalog I had already looked at like 5 times, but this was just such a sight that I couldn't help but gawk. And that is not the end of my story although it should have been, but the #!&! machine still wouldn't open. All sweaty and stunned she gave up and went to the cash register to refund my money. When she came back, I was actually considering asking her to join me for a Blizzard at the Dairy Queen next door with the $4.75 because I was so sure that was the hardest she had ever worked in an afternoon. I tried the door one last time before extending an invitation and whatta you know...it opened! My quilt was free! At that point, I'm quite sure she thought she was being Punked. I moved my hot and smelly quilt to one of the washers I knew was working and wasted another 37 minutes of my day watching my bedding go round and round in lieu of ice cream, and it's a good thing since I gave up sweets for Lent (and she clearly didn't need any...especially if she was going to have to perform more stunts on the job.)

I drove like Mario Andretti to beat the bus home. Miss Bit and I got back in the car and headed to the book store. I promised her a new Dr. Seuss book in honor of his birthday. What can I say...I'm a glutton for punishment because we had to read the 6 runner's up before we could make such an important choice. Although, I refused to even consider Hop on Pop. She really wanted Purplicious or Goldilicious, but neither one of them hold even a smoldering candle to Pinkalicious so we passed. On the way home we picked T. Bone up from Scouts where he made a very cool bird feeder. The kids played nicely two-gether until we all piled on one couch (cats and all) to tune into American Idol. I let them stay up a little late just so I wouldn't have to read any more Dr. Seuss before bed.

The moral of the story is...don't ever raid your kid's rice bowl for quarters for the laundromat. It's flat out bad juju.