Mmmmm, clothes

Unlike 100% of the people I know, LC and I don't have a washer/dryer unit, and so have to go to the local laundromat, aptly named Twenty-Four Hour Local Laundromat.

I love it. It reminds me of Mexico, and not because I make blanket stereotypical generalizations, but because it really is like stepping across the double sliding glass door threshold at the Twenty-Four Hour Local Laundromat transports one down through Texas deep into the Sierra Madres. (I wanted to make a Zelda simile here, but I won't.)

The music is Mexican, the talk is Mexican, the smell is even in a vague way Mexican. Musty. Lots of corn. And the scattered, half-confused way I try to communicate, usually unsuccessfully, is exactly like what it was like to be in Mexico. Plus they always watch soccer. I love it. I read my books and listen to the hustle bustle and occasionally someone asks me for a cigarette or a quarter or four quarters because their towels won't get dry, and then some women come in with babies and everybody crowds around and pokes at the baby faces and I ask how old the baby is and they say something I don't understand and I ask again and they look at me in a confused way and don't know what to do. It's just like Mexico. I love it.

And so I look forward to visiting Twenty-Four Hour Local Laundromat. Sometimes I go when I probably don't have even half a load of whites. I happily save quarters after grocery shopping. On weekends drive by and peer in to see if there's anybody I know.