08 March 2012

Ay la lavanderia!

One of the more interesting aspects of life in the Den right now is balancing commuting with home.  With that comes doing some things out of the ordinary - like going to the coin laundry to do your wash.  That, my friends, is how I spent a bit of my night tonight.  I can hear the groans of envy now.

I haven't been inside a coin laundry since 1987.  I did laundry in some of the finest (and by 'finest,' I mean mostly fronts for drug deals and the fencing of stolen goods) laundrys in the greater Miami area for about two years during my service as a missionary for my Church.  As I watched my laundry spin tonight, I thought about some of those establishments, or 'lavanderias.' There were some things common to them:

  • The owner was typically a Cuban man who stationed his wife or mother, either of whom had to be borderline elderly, at the front to act as the bouncer
  • Said woman was required to have at least one television blaring away at full volume at all times
  • Said woman would scream colorful (read obscenities) things whenever Fidel Castro's name was invoked
  • The television was always playing a novela.  Novelas are Spanish-language television soap operas and they are awesome.  Same story every time - poor girl, wealthy boy with a brutal mother, a priest and a nun, and a requirement that at least one male actor be shirtless at all times.  Also, the sets were such that whenver a door closed, it nearly brought down the whole thing.  Finally, they always had them songs, like "Que porque te quiero" or "Mi vida eres tu"
  • Finally, the dryers were set to "Nuclear Meltdown" level, regardless of what level you set them to.  I melted more waistbands of the unmentionables than I care to remember...
Those were good times.  Tonight wasn't that good of a time.  I look forward to doing my wash at home soon.  I really just look forward to spending some time at home this weekend.  That will be a good time.

No comments: