Why laundry and drugs do not mix

At this point, we are laughing a little, but the couple was generally nice and harmless in spite of seeming a little confused.

Where in Brooklyn dude?

"confused"

Act Two:

7. The couple are now back in the laundromat, when a woman comes in who appears agitated.

At the risk of appearing racist, it might be worth noting that the girlfriend is white, the boyfriend is hispanic, and the woman who comes in is black, and they are all different ages. Under normal circumstances, there'd be nothing all that odd about this in a diverse place like Jersey City. But as they all are in varying states of confusion and agitation, it's not hard to guess how they all met.

8. The woman is smoking a cigarette, and gets miffed when the couple tries to make her put it out.

For some reason, every time I have seen someone walk into a non-smoking business and refuse to put out their smoke, trouble follows.

9. The couple and the woman go into the back and start talking about something that we can't quite make out, but the woman is very upset.

10. A black man, who is dressed slightly *off* and is wearing a Gilligan hat, comes in with a crazed, angry look in his eye, and yells to the woman "You wanna stay in here all night?" She shouts something back, and then he leaves.

11. Now able to make out the conversation, I hear the woman saying "You don't understand! They're going to padlock my door!"

The girlfriend is saying something like, "I want to help you, I'll try to help you."

The woman says, "No! You don't understand, this has never happened to me before!"

Girlfriend: "Just calm down."

Woman: "I need the money in front of the judge at 9am TOMORROW!"

Girlfriend: "I want to help you .."

Woman: "No you DON'T! I need the money tonight!"

12. They both start moving towards us as they are arguing, getting louder and more agitated. Suddenly SMACK! The woman knocks the girlfriend's bright pink strawberry shake all over her and all over the floor, and all over the couple's clothes.

13. Now, of course, they are screaming at each other, the boyfriend is trying to break them up, and the manager is threatening to call the cops, which goes on for at least a couple of minutes before the woman finally leaves.

I realize I don't really have much of an ending for this story. We kind of just laughed it off with the poor manager, who was left to clean it all up, and luckily our laundry was done soon after and we left.

Later, when we were at home, we heard what we thought were gunshots, but luckily it only turned out to be a bunch of kids throwing rocks at the metal doors of the warehouse across the street.

Weirdest things I've seen at the laundromat lately (that may or may not have been due to drug use): a man very methodically spraying the entire surface of a large comforter (took him about 15 minutes to unload what must've been the entire bottle) with Shout (stain remover) then immediately putting it into a washing machine (if there was a stain on it, which from about 20 feet away where I was standing there didn't appear to be, immediately washing it after putting the Shout on wasn't going to help). He looked kinda worried, like he was going to be caught. Second, a woman ran out to the attendant who was out having a cig saying that her dryer stopped after only a couple of minutes even though she put enough quarters in that it should've been on for about 15 minutes. The attendant came in to see what was wrong and said to her "but you don't have anything in the dryer anyway so what does it matter?" The woman just shrugged and said, "yeah, I guess you're right." I love going to the laundromat.

Where on earth does it cost 16 quarters for a load of laundry? Are they washing it in champagne?

The other problem is that drugs very rarely make it out of the laundry intact.

But yeah, I agree Orbit, that seems like far too many quarters.

Very droll. Very droll.

No really, I laughed, it was a good joke.

But regarding the quarters, these are those giant triple loader machines that you can fit like two junkies' entire wash in.

11 quarters for a double load machine + 5 quarters for a dryer = 16 quarters!

What's yer laundromat, tokyo? We generally go to the one right off Grove (on Wayne, I think?)

I mean, who smokes crack and decides to go to the laundromat? (Not enough hours in the day, I guess)

I used to go to one on Grove, and, uh 1st? and then I went to one on Jersey Ave and 3rd?? 2nd?? or so which had a nicer atmosphere (and Chinese soap operas!), but now I don't live in JC anymore.

I mean, who smokes crack and decides to go to the laundromat? (Not enough hours in the day, I guess)

-- Aaron A. (__...), May 2nd, 2005.

My guess would be: crack addicts.

People on crack DO everything on crack!