Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Laundry room woes


One of the downsides to living in an apartment complex in the Galleria is that most of the buildings were built in the 1970's. For some reason they thought it would be a good idea not to include washer and dryer connections. Therefore they created rooms that house 4-6 washers and dryers you have to put money in to use them.
The last apartment I lived in was so old, my dad used to live there with his brother in high school! When we moved into this all bills paid apartment, my roommate and I were given special permission from one of the property leasing agents, "Ruthy," to use this "secret" washer and dryer in an old storage room right outside our door. We were not supposed to be using it so we had to be quiet about it. Ruthy lived below us and had met my roommmate through some mutual friends a while back. The stipulations: We always had to call her to get a maintance person to unlock the door and we had to share it with Ruthy, her hot-tempered husband, and random items and trash left in the room. Almost every time I started a wash of clothes, invariably a maintanence person would lock the door and I would have to call again. Sometimes there would be laundry left in the dryer by this couple and I would place it nicely back on top of the closed washer. One early morning I was leaving for a fitness boot camp around 6am, I was barked at by the Ruthy's husband. He accused me of throwing their clean clothes on the ground. I told him I was not doing that but he persisted to yell at me! I followed up with a comment about how he always parallel parks behind my car in the morning before he leaves for work and how I did not appreciate it. He went inside his apartment before I could finish and slammed the door.
As soon as the office was open, I called his wife and told her how inappropriate his actions were and that I was not going to use their "secret" laundry room anymore. She gave me a small "I'm sorry" but that was it. I lived out my lease in fear that her husband would find some other reason to come after me. On top of the apt complex being ghetto, I had to deal with this hot head.
Back to present day.On Sunday, I went to the laundry room at my complex to wash my clothes as normal. As I was walking over to the room, it looked like I had the place to myself. Except when I entered the room I was startled to see this guy who was casually sitting indian style on top of the washers reading a book like he was hanging out at a bookstore. He looked up at me and I gave him a half smile. I began putting my clothes in the 2 washers farthest away from this guy and tried to go as fast as I could to get away from this akwardness. Here I am throwing in my dirty clothes while he reads his little novel. I pray that he does not look up and watch me put my clothes in! I start to leave and he looks up and says excitedly, "Have a nice day!"
I returned with a thank you and a smile, thinking to myself, what a weirdo! So about 30 minutes later I come back and think that he must be gone by now. Nope. He is still reading his book! Come on, there has to be somewhere else you can read that!Mind you, he is about 30-35, wearing glasses and looks kind of nerdy. He looks up again and I don't say anything to him. I hurredly throw my clothes in to the dryer and off I go. Phew!
Of course the whole while, there is no other person in there to break up the akwardness. Just me and the bookworm.
Dear Weird Guy,
You know it would be a better idea if you just read your book at home instead of sitting on top of the washers baring your hairy legs because it really makes people feel uncomfortable!
Signed,
Disgruntled Clothes Washer

2 comments:

Mrs. Klink said...

waaahahaaaa! :D

Mary said...

Happy Thanksgiving girl! I hope you have an awesome day...are you getting together with family? Well, I'm thankful for a friend like you:) Have a great day!
mary