Tuesday, January 29, 2019

Laundromat Spook

I lived for a year in a tiny town in upstate New York called Trumansburg. It is famous for being the birthplace of the Moog Synthesizer and then a summer music fest called Grassroots. The fact both these musical things happened in the same one mile strip always made me chuckle.

It also had what seemed like two of everything but not in a helpful way for a town that seemed to be 1 mile wide by 5 miles long. Two grocery stores at opposite ends of town. Two video stores. Two greasy pizza style sports bars. Two laundromats. All in a one to two mile radius.

One laundromat was owned by a guy named Skip and I had no patience for such whimsy. He named his washers old fashioned fat lady names. Bertha is down! Belinda is a faster washer! Eunice? Oh, yeah that is my favorite washer, Eunice!

The other was the "corporate" one albeit it was run by what seemed to be a straight up ancient hag witch. Im not a looker but damn she was what you imagine when someone is being super by a super sexy illusion.

"No, don't go, Joe! I saw her reflection in the puddle at our feet and she is not hot. She is a monster!"

But I befriended her because I listened while she ranted about the price of canned vegetables. And those two supermarkets? One was better because it sold "real" Del Monte vegetables.

She collected unsold copies of the local county paper and gave them to the coffee shop across rhe street in exchange for punches on a loyalty card. Apparently the printer bought the unsold copies back. Which I never understood but it was a small local paper and she went hard for canned vegetables so why should I ask.

She never bought coffee but after hundreds of papers she would get a towering hot chocolate which like the Del Monte must have been unapologetically real.

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