Today's topic, for those of you keeping score at home, is one that Andrew Barbano, Ira Hansen and Dennis Myers would all be afraid to touch. That topic is my dirty laundry. Now, this may not seem like an important topic, but trust me, it becomes a topic of utmost importance when you are, like I was a few days ago, down to your last pair of clean underwear.
I have the pleasure of dwelling in an apartment where I am not privileged enough to have my own washer and dryer. This means I have to schlep all my damn dirty clothes across the freaking apartment complex every friggin' two weeks or so, and pay 75 $%#% cents per gosh-darned load of laundry in the cretin laundry room.
Not that I am bitter or anything. No. I love doing laundry! Really! And I am in need of some sedatives!
Anyway, there are some annoying steps I find myself taking every couple weeks -- when my last pair of clean underwear is staring me in the face.
--The mad dash for quarters: Without fail, I will be heading off to the laundry room when I suddenly realize that I have a total of two quarters on me with which to wash four loads of laundry. Simple math tells me that this is not possible, unless I get Hillary Clinton involved in some land deal with my quarters.
So, there is only one option: to go find change somewhere. One of the things about the casino culture in the area -- along with the fact that almost 24 hours a day, we can listen to really horrible lounge acts sing lousy songs like "A Horse With No Name" -- is that quarters are easy to come by. Anytime I need quarters, all I have to is round up some paper money (this can, in itself, be a challenge) and head to a casino.
However, in most other parts of the country, there are not as many casinos. Thus, people are forced to try and get change from places like convenience stores.
This leads to conversations like this:
Prospective laundry-doer: Hi! I need some change. Can I get $5 in quarters?
Clerk (with evil look in his eye). No. You have to buy something before I can give you change.
Laundry-doer: OK... give me this Slim Jim and $4.50 in quarters.
Clerk (with really evil grin): Then I can only give you $2 in quarters, so we do not run out. Store policy, ya know.
Laundry-doer (crying): Oh, pleeeeeeeeeease?
Clerk (snooty-sounding): I am sorry, no.
Laundry-doer (pulling a gun): Give me QUARTERS! AAAARRRGGGH!
It is a little-known fact that most convenience store robbers, in fact, are simply normal men and women who just wanted quarters to do laundry and snapped when they did not get them
--The full-dryer dilemma: This is the most heinous part about doing laundry in a public place.
Imagine: after you have finally robbed a Winner's Corner or something to get quarters, and put your clothes in the washer, you return to put them in a dryer. However, there are no dryers open -- even though most of them have finished their cycles and are just sitting there full of dry, wrinkling clothing -- because a number of jerk idiots have decided their clothes apparently need a rest after their stressful time in the dryer.
This happened to me the other day. Of the 18 dryers in my apartment complex's laundry room, five dryers were running, and the other 13 were finished but still had clothes in them.
I decided to wait 15 minutes for the clothes owners to come and get their laundry. When I returned and the situation had not changed, I waited another 5 minutes. And then did the unimaginable -- I took the clothes out and put mine in.
This is a very uncomfortable situation, to handle the clothing of a complete stranger like this. I was afraid that the clothes' owner would walk in as I had a big armload of his/her/its unmentionables, and want to know what in the HELL I was doing. But fortunately, I was quick and was able to make the switch before he/she/it arrived.
And let me tell you, I sure hurried back when I thought my clothes were dry, because the thought of some stranger rooting through my underwear was something I did not enjoy.
So, when that time comes that I finally am able to move into a house (which at the rate I am going, will come in the year 4127), the first thing I will make sure of is that I have a good washer and dryer in place. And then, when I go to casinos, it won't be to get quarters.
No. It will be to strangle the lounge singers singing "A Horse With No Name."
Jimmy Boegle is a fifth-generation Nevadan who is glad he does not need to do laundry for another two weeks. His column appears here Tuesdays.