Mar. 3, 2008 at 3:29pm

four hours of sheer delight

(or not.)

I finally could ignore the laundry no longer.   We were out of dishtowels, were using dog towels on our own bodies, the kid had no pants, and the second duvet in two weeks had been yogurt-ed on(yeah, the kid was eating strawberries and yogurt in bed when she was sick, so sue me); I looked closer and noticed the sheets and a tee shirt (not mine) had been Diet Dr Pepper-ed on.  Kid? Mate? Who knew.  All I knew was, it was nasty, nasty, nasty, and I can't live like that.  So, without further ado the bed was stripped, and the car was filled with more than a couple of weeks of stinky, dirty laundry.

At Cavanaugh's getting my morning motivation, I was told to give The Laundry Mart a try.  It's located on 6th Ave across from KMart, between Artco and Comcast. The magic words "they have super capacity washers" compelled my car to that direction, and I was pleased to see that indeed, the space is clean, large, and has many many mega-ultra capacity machines.  I filled three of the six- load machines, two of the four-load machines, and nearly wept at the resulting total (somewhere in the realm of $35.)  

But one nice thing about the Laundry Mart is that the washing machine transactions take place via card-swipe (it's a card you load up yourself, rather like a copy card I had at college. BUT note: this is a bills-only laundromat; they don't take plastic except through the ATM machine, and the machine that dispenses the cards only takes bills.) 

Also nice: that the place is, well, nice! It's clean, the staffer was friendly, and then the owner came in and helped me out to my car with my 2 filled baskets and 4 bags (I had already dealt with the bedding, as that was dry first.)  The space has some huge folding tables, snacks and beverages, a Simpson's video game as well as pinball and some hunting video game thing, plus a flat-panel TV belting out super-testosterone-ated ESPN.  Yeah, it's a bit surreal to flash a leopard print thong and lacy underthings, alongside hole-riddled granny pants while Kobe Bryant is discussed ad nauseum, but hey...  whatever.  I live for this kind of random.

All told, it was a four-hour time-suck of an experience, BUT my laundry is all cleaned, folded, and dry, patiently awaiting being put away.  I won't have to worry about innocently putting on a fleece only to be gagged by the musty odor of death-mold due to inadequate drying time.  

It's a good thing.