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.