So baby, times gettin' a little crazy, I've been getting a little lazy

Scene from the laundry mat...
[Note: "lady" and "woman" below have been assigned to a specific female--they are used in lieu of "person A"/"person B", "thing 1"/"thing 2", etc.]

Yesterday (Sunday), I did my laundry (six loads, in total)--gasp, shock (yes, amazing, I know)--and things went rather smoothly. I have been semi-reluctant to try to do laundry on Sundays, fearing that a ton of people would be there, but that was not the case. Maybe because I was there around noon-time?

Anyways, I'd done the washing half, amazingly stumbling into a row of 6 vacant machines (initially, I'd thought there was only 4 open, and that I'd need to do 2 rounds). Right before I'm to lay claim to some dryers, a "lady" comes over and (seeming to me) encroaches upon my dryer area. Now, I remind myself that we're in a public/shared space, and to be ok with it all. Which I was about 5 seconds later; leaving me wondering why the lady decided to take the long way around the 'mat to get to the dryers. Then again, I notice she's using one (or more) of the 4 non-normal washing machines, so I just chalk it up to her quirkiness.

So, she lays claim on 2 neighboring dryers--in the middle of all the dryers--one of which I would've probably used, leaving me somewhat puzzled about where to dry. About 2 minutes later (after she's loaded and gone back to washing), I scope out the vacant machines, and get to drying next to her (and actually initially/purposely pick the dryer right next to her stuff, to prevent her from spreading out, and saving me 4 machines--3 at eye level, 1 on the ground--to work with ).

Enter: the floor show
About 25 minutes later, my clothes are in the 3 eye-level, neighboring dryers, drying. I, myself, am trying to be diligent and am doing some prep reading for work (on personal organization for a course I'll be teaching in Houston next month), while awaiting dry stuff to fold. The lady, she's just returned to one of the washers she was using (which her husband had just emptied to bring around to dry), to find another "woman" putting her cloths into it. The lady is not happy.

She protests: what are you doing, that's my washer! The woman loading her clothes doesn't say anything loud enough for me to hear and apparently continues, as the lady tells her to stop putting clothes in and in my mind closes the washer's door. The woman loading the machine is not having any of this (presumably) as she opens the washer door--and according to the lady pushes her in the process (the lady says the woman shoved her, several times, however, I didn't spot such a dramatic motion out of the corner of my eye). The lady complains: don't push me, that's assault, I'm calling the police about this. When I look up, the lady is dialing the phone, while at the same time telling the women she's not going to let her close the door to the washer to allow the wash to start. Meanwhile, I'm off in my corner, enjoying the show and looking at the 12 washers currently not-in-use [pictured above] .

About 10-15 minutes later--after I've started folding my laundry, migrated my clothes out of the dryer nearest the lady's stuff (leaving an empty, buffer washer between she and I), the lady has called the police 3-4 times (3 initially, 1 later to find out where they were), and the washer in question remains idle with the lady's hand still on the door to prevent it from being closed and starting--a policeman arrives. The lady states her case, loudly enough for all to hear, to the officer and that she wants to file an assault charge. The officer listens, and then stops the lady from ranting on-and-on so that he can get the woman's side of what happened--which I don't hear on the other side of the room because the woman hasn't talked as loudly as the lady.

After about 5-10 more minutes of me folding/eavesdropping, the policeman asks whether or not the lady can uses the vacant machine next to the one in question. The lady rapidly replies no, that her load can't fit in it, it will only fit into the machine in question. The policeman then asks the woman, and she complies after a brief lag--I subsequently surmised that the delay was because the woman had already put her money into the machine (which I learned from the lady).

Ah, the drama at the laundry mat: I may start going more often...

By the way, they've got a Ms. Pac-Man machine, tempting the lure quarters away from a drying cycle for a game...



Cause I've been acting like sour milk all on the floor
It's your fault, you didn't shut the re-frig-er-a-tor
Maybe that's the reason I've been actin' so cold...