from March 17, 2008
Now the thing to remember is that I was very tired.
It was pretty empty at the Laundromat today. I usually go there on Wednesday but I had a huge amount of towels to wash and it couldn’t wait. In fact, I was using four medium machines, and two of them were just towels, but that’s not relevant. (And while were not being relevant, what is ring spun cotton? I know I can just look it up on line but I don’t want to. I bought a package of underwear the other day. I won’t go into detail about my underwear [you can give me a private call if you want to get kinky that way, what the heck?] and it was “now made with ring spun cotton.” Not that it mattered either way. I usually buy either Hanes or Fruit of the Loom, whichever the store has. If the store has both its a toss up. Anyway, whatever this “ring spinning” does, it does make a nice soft pair of underwear.)
So this was Monday and most people come in on Wednesday for the discount (1/2 PRICE! Medium loaders! Until 3:00 ONLY! EARLY BIRD SPECIAL!) but since I don’t get there until around about four it doesn’t matter to me. Except that on Wednesdays the crowd that came in “early bird” are still there hogging the dryers when I get in. C’mon people- who needs one dryer for one sheet and another dryer for your socks? Put them all in one, you selfish bastards! I need to dry my ring spun underwear!
So like I said I was tired. I woke at up a 4:07 a.m. (I looked at he clock) from a strange dream. I dreamed that I was working at LHS until late at night and had to sleep on a cot. I also dreamed that I had an office of my own and a couple of other teachers were working late and had to sleep on cots too. Anyway, when I woke up I never did get back to sleep and sort of drifted in and out until I got out of bed at 6:31 (I looked at the clock) and that was that.
I was at the Laundromat earlier than usual too, so that meant that I’d be long gone by the time Jeopardy! came on, and that may have been a good thing since I may have come within a hair of being popped by a guy dressed all in red last time it came on. (No, by the way, by “guy dressed all in red” I don’t mean Satan. At least he didn’t seem to be Satan. He looked kind of stupid actually, but he did have a Yankee cap and that is probably what Satan would wear so who knows?)
I was sitting there watching the dryers spin and a strange pair of women walked in front of me. They were anywhere from 36 to 180 years old. You know what I mean, the kind of women who lived hard lives (drunks) and every second of it showed on their faces. Badly dyed hair, too much makeup, and absolutely covered in bad tattoos. Ugh. They were wearing t-shirts from some tattoo artist so maybe they were examples of his work. Or maybe they were the artists. Either way there was no way I would risk getting hep B from a dirty needle to look like that when I’m old and used up.
Now bear in mind that I was tired and also that I had been reading a Nero Wolfe story this morning and that may explain why I, for some unfathomable reason, I came off like Archie Goodwin here. (Don’t read Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe? You are missing out, pilgrim. [Pilgrim? What am I, John Wayne?]) (And I really am tired if I’m doing the brackets/parenthesis thing. And now the slash thing too. Sheesh and ugh, am I drawing out a simple story here.)
Well, I’m sitting there In my nylon Mets windbreaker. Remember Peter DeLuise from 21 Jump Street? After a couple of seasons he was too old to play a high school kid so they gave him a windbreaker and a whistle and presto! He was a gym teacher. Anyway, I was rocking the Doug Penhall look.
Back to wherever it was I was going before I got so easily derailed. Remember I said I was tried? Well, I still am.
So I’m there and one of these tattooed Methuselahs gimps over to me and asks me what I think of tattoos. So, here’s what I said. It just came out of my mouth and I am not sure what I meant by it:
“You mean on me or you?”
Was I being insulting? Was I trying a line? Was I going to make conversation? I have no clue. I know I half-smiled when I said it, and I was just as confused as you when it came out, so your guess is as good as mine as to what was going on in my head.
She said. “We can talk about me later honey. I have all kinds of piercings too.”
I said “Huh, uh, uh huh.”
She: “You want a tattoo?”
Me: “No.”
She: “Maybe a (and she said something that sounded like “shlegmire” here.) right on your arm” and them she traced an outline on my bicep. The shriveled thing touched me!
I said no thanks and got up and walked away. OK, I jogged. (I was wearing a windbreaker after all, so I should at least pretend to be athletic.) I spent the next almost 10 minutes sitting in my car until the dryer was done, then I got my clothes and my huge load of towels and wheeled them across the store and folded them about as far as I could get from the tattooed circus freaks.
Morale of the story? I don’t know. Point of the story? Nope, don’t know either.
But I have strange luck at the Laundromat
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BONUS!.
OUT-OF-CONTEXT QUOTE OF THE WEEK!
This is an exact quote, said today, taken out of context:
“YOU made him gay, I made him a pedophile!”
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